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afroakuma
2009-06-13, 09:37 AM
Alright, folks, I'm debating someone on the merits of 4E vs. 3.X, and we've run into an essential snag:

He's a pure gamist; I am a simulationist with some gamist tendencies.

He's into the system; I'm into the tradition.

So, here's what I'd like: Expound on your criticisms and dislikes of either system from a gamist perspective only.

Since I don't want to provoke another tedious edition war, I ask that the following rules be followed:

• Do not try to argue against any point raised. It's not about what you like, it's about what you dislike.

• Do not quote someone and respond point-for-point with mirrored dislikes. It's been done to death and is almost always not half as clever as you think.

• Do not make it about the fluff, about the simulation or about the setting. These are largely matters of personal taste.

• And for pity's sake, do not simply pop in to state that 4E is World of Warcraft or any equivalent thereof.

• Good luck! Yeah, this is still gonna crash and burn.

Sanguine
2009-06-13, 09:43 AM
I dislike how in 3.5 at low levels you can get killed with a single blow.

I dislike 4Es lack of variety in Wizard spells.

dspeyer
2009-06-13, 09:54 AM
I dislike how 4e focusses on doing damage, and gives you no choice. No matter your class, your build or your concept, most of your abilities will be about hurting people.

Dogmantra
2009-06-13, 10:04 AM
3.5:
The massive power imbalance by level 20
The fact that so many tactics are just better in every way (THF > S&B, for example)
The fact that feats have massively varying usefulness (Skill Focus: Concentration > Combat Casting)
The fact that some feats that are supposed to be equivalent don't work the same way (specifically, Power attack gives x2 with a two hander, but Combat Expertise doesn't give x2 with, say, a shield)

I'm sure there are more

4e:
I haven't played it, but I like 3.5, so I guess I have to hate it? :smalltongue:

Saph
2009-06-13, 10:19 AM
From a game perspective, there are lots of minor quibbles, but I'll only list the big ones.

• 3.5

- Unbalanced classes.
- System breaks down at higher levels (too slow, balance issues).
- Requires a lot of rules knowledge to play.

• 4e

- Not enough mechanical variety. Too many classes feel too similar.
- Out-of-combat options are either underpowered (most rituals) or nonexistent (almost no noncombat skills)
- Minions and solo monsters are too easy. Swarms and certain other regular monsters are too difficult.

That's about it. There are lots of other little things, but I'd be lying if I said they really bothered me.

- Saph

Doc Roc
2009-06-13, 10:32 AM
3.5
I don't think the casters are too strong.
Somewhat slow in the hands of inexperienced players.
I think melee classes are too weak.
Or at least, that people pursue terrible builds.
The lack of continuing support is really killer.

3.75
It's not out yet.
Polymorph is still broken.

4.0
The at will powers tend to dominate combat and blur together without speeding things up even slightly.
Most of the same problems.
Combat feels like a lazy grudge fest or a bad action movie.
Death of Planescape.


I'm a pure Gamist. I like 3.5, I don't like 4.0. But I'm not really a straight DnD guy. My fave system is savage worlds which is far and away superior to 4.0. I only run 3.5 by request of my close friends, and due to my technical knowledge which is passably large.

Kroy
2009-06-13, 10:35 AM
4e
- All classes feel like wizards.
- All classes feel the same.
- No multi-classing
- Little optimization required. I hate how no matter how bad/well you design your character, your as good as everyone else.
3.5
- Game play dies at higher levels

Fishy
2009-06-13, 11:00 AM
In 3.5, the Wizard casts 5 save-or-lose's per day while the Fighter spends all day whittling down HP. The various classes all have interestingly different mechanics, which is nice from a gamist perspective, but when they start actually working at cross purposes, that's game-istic-ally terrible.

Also, when making a new character with several levels, assigning skill points requires a lot of brainpower for little need or gain.

Eldariel
2009-06-13, 11:09 AM
4e:
-The lack of variety between the base class mechanics
-The lack of non-combat skills
-Skill challenges as written
-Basically everything pitting you vs. HP
-Lack of options in character building (e.g. requiring you to find a class with the abilities that fit your character concept)
-The basic formulas for offensive actions are basically always being 1d20+class/ability bonus+key score; keeps balance, sure, but really restricts what kinds of abilities can even be printed

3.5e:
-The extensive homebrewing/splatbooking required to bring the game to mechanical balance (especially the completely busted Core-spells)
-Poorly written rules (I'm looking at you, Grapple) and constantly unclear RAW
-Poorly written Core classes (poorly compatible with the multiclassing, no capstones, tons of dead levels, no "midway boons" around 10 for dualclassed characters, etc.)
-Caster multiclassing not working out properly without a combination PrC
-Attacks of opportunity being too easy to negate even though they're supposedly a balancing mechanic for many abilities
-Poorly written Epic and insufficient support for some of the more functional systems in general (Psionics, Sublime Way Warriors, Incarnum, Binding)

Morty
2009-06-13, 11:11 AM
Purely gamist standpoint? Let's see.

3.xed
- Some options - be it classes, races, spells or feat chains - are vastly superior to others. It might be because the stronger option is too strong, the weaker option too weak or both.
- HP inflation leads to damage-dealing not being optimal at high levels and PCs facing entire armies because low-level soldiers can bash a high-level fighter all day, as said fighter can survive a barrage of crossbow bolts without blinking.

4ed
- Minions are much weaker than their XP value would suggest.
- HP is much too easy to restore.

That would be it. There's more things about both editions I dislike - especially 4th edition - but they aren't based on a gamist standpoint.

Evilfeeds
2009-06-13, 11:14 AM
My personal biggest gripe with 4th is they removed a lot of the cool passive effects, which sucks the fun out. It seems that everything now revolves around combat.

(Disclaimer, Ive only played 4th a few times, so i could be wrong on details)

Example abilities which I liked, regardless of whether they sucked or not:

Rangers and druids can no longer "talk to" animals.
Barbarians are no longer illiterate.
Monks probably wont have tongue of sun and moon.

Artanis
2009-06-13, 12:36 PM
3.5:

*I dislike all the steps you have to go through to cast a spell on somebody. I mean, it can take what, fifteen rolls between two people to see if a spell does anything? Yes, fifteen is a gross exaggeration, but it can seem like it at times.
*I dislike how, in every supplement, there would be new classes, but they never got support outside of that supplement. How much new Incarnum stuff did we see in future supplements? At least 4e is supporting its non-core classes like the Swordmage, and even non-core builds like the BM Ranger are at least getting token support.
*I dislike how damned many different kinds of bonuses there area. How many times do you really get a Profane Bonus? Cut out some of the chaff, and there could be more worthwhile stuff...or at least less needless complexity.
*I dislike how easy it is to ruin a character. You make a wrong choice, and you're worthless forever. In 4e, while there is a significant difference between a well-built character and a terribly-built one, it's really, REALLY hard to make one that is worthless...and even if you do, you can fix it via retraining.

4.0:

*I dislike when different builds have extra effects on daily abilities (example: Fortune's Reversal, AP 74). Encounter powers, sure, but not dailies. The Warlock is a huge offender in this category, though the Sorcerer isn't exactly innocent either.
*Tangental to #2 above, I dislike how diluted support for each build must become if they want to support all of them. Supporting each class is great, but there's simply too many of them to give decent support to some of the more unique ones. The Archery Ranger is pretty much incapable of using any multiclass stuff (and even Rogue stuff is off-limits if they want to use a bow), and God have mercy on Vestige Warlocks.

jseah
2009-06-13, 12:49 PM
3.5E
Too much versatility on spellcasters. (Why have an airship? Teleport!)
Super-overpowered abilities at level 20. (creating demiplanes?!)

4E
Too little versatility on everyone. (Nooo... no more airship design!! T.T )
Too balanced. (yes, this is a bad thing when the only measure of balance is combat)

Both
Not enough focus on items/expendables. (they're useless... even though they shouldn't be since they burn a resource permanently)
Not enough customization. (WotC really should have made a base guideline for making powers)

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-06-13, 01:03 PM
Since I have not played 4e, I cannot comment on that system. However, some things I dislike about 3.5 (which I am keeping in mind while creating my own game system)

1) Casters > all. At almost any level, Casters are simply more powerful than anyone else. At low levels, Sleep > all. At high levels... yea... just broken.

2) Some rules are poorly written, yet after years of support, were never fixed (Epic Seeds and Grapple being the two worst culprits)

3) You needed magic, or magic items, or you were worthless after a certain level. Come on, using magic items is cool and all, but it is almost impossible to find a CR 10+ monster which doesn't need some form of magic to kill.

4) The flipside of the previous problem: Magic Item Mudflation. Everyone has magic items. Every hovel has some sort of magic item floating around, or some caster. High level characters need extra-dimensional spaces just to store all their magic items... using an Efficent Quiver to stash your swords, for example. "Let's see... where's my +1 Keen Flame Burst Bastard sword... no, that's the holy avenger... sunblade... no, that's the frost burst one...". This isn't just a flavor problem, it is a game mechanics problem. The rules explicitly state how common magic items are. They make them... not cool. When everyone has a cool magic item, magic items lose their coolness factor.

The_Werebear
2009-06-13, 01:58 PM
@ Afro --- Thanks for being specific :smallbiggrin:

What I dislike About 3.5
-Requires players and DM's to have an extensive rules knowledge.
-Many, many loopholes that need quashing.
-Too damn many books were released eventually. There is a glut of poorly thought out and edited material that exacerbates the previous two.
-Questionable usefulness of some classes
-At high end games, the system starts to tear itself apart unless the DM and players are very careful to keep it in check


What I dislike about 4.0
-Too few meaningful options, too much overlap.
-Teamwork is mandatory. (In 3.5, you can split up the party for miniencounters. Every time I have tried that in 4.0, it results in death.)
-New grappling rules have replaced confusion with sucking.
-New multiclassing is horrible, further reducing ability to customize characters.
-(If this counts) The Distribution system for new information and classes.
-Feats tend to be of limited value.

Zeta Kai
2009-06-13, 02:07 PM
Well, I'm going to try & set aside some of my bias & look at both editions fairly. Both editions have merits & flaws, & no system is perfect. And as someone who is trying to make a universal RPG system that isn't based on D&D, I can understand some of the design problems that game-makers have.

3E Flaws

The various classes are wildly dissimilar in power level & utility, making "options" mostly an issue of how much work I want to put into being competent.
There are so many options that character generation can take an entire session.
The skill system is confusing & inconsistent, with some abilities being to hard to use effectively (like Escape Artist, Heal, or Truenaming), & others being so easy that they are broken (like Diplomacy, Tumble, or Use Rope).
The feats vary widely in power, with some being useless (Toughness or Dodge) & some being better than class features (Leadership or most Metamagic).
Hit points are so random that a lucky rogue can have almost as many hit points as an unlucky barbarian.
Hit points are so low that low-level combat is very deadly.
Combat takes forever to resolve at high levels.
The grapple system is confusing, messy, & pointless.
The attack-of-opportunity system is confusing, messy, & pointless.
The CR/ECL system is confusing, messy, & pointless.
Prestige classes vary widely in power, with some being broken & others being worthless. The requirements are essentially random, & some require planning from CharGen.
Vancian casting is weird & arbitrary, & leads to the 15-minute game-day.
Critical hits =/= headshots.

4E Flaws

The various classes are boringly similar in power level & utility, making "options" mostly an issue of what I want to look like when I'm being competent.
There are so few real options that character generation should take a much shorter time than it does.
Non-combat skills were either consolidated or eliminated altogether, which puts many common activities (like negotiation, crafting, forgery, etc.) in the game outside of the rule-set.
The feats are very low power & mostly similar to one another, squashing variety for balance's sake (like most aspects of character building).
Healing surges make a character's hit points almost irrelevant.
Hit points are so high that combats take a long time to complete.
Combat takes a long time to resolve at all levels.
The skill challenges system is confusing, messy, & pointless.
The treasure/wealth system is confusing, messy, & pointless.
The minion system is confusing, messy, & pointless.
Paragon paths/epic destinies are all the same, & can only be entered at the same time. This makes no sense from an perspective other than gamist, & unnecessarily limits options there, too.
The 4E approach to powers claimed to remove the 15-minute game-day, but only made it worse.
Critical hits =/= headshots.

I'm sure that I have other qualms with both systems, but those are the basics. I know that I'm a nit-picker, but I'm only trying to be fair.

Alteran
2009-06-13, 02:29 PM
3.5e

I've never played, so I can't say very much here. However, by reading the SRD I can already tell that casters are by far more powerful than other classes when you get to medium or high levels.

4e

Almost all powers do damage (including...Maze?). WotC finally made more non-damaging powers in the PHB2, and those are some of my favourites.

Almost all powers need to do damage. Monsters have far more HP than PCs, so the most important thing is often how hard you can hit them.

Since monsters have so much more HP than PCs, high-level battles can start to grind once you run out of encounter and daily powers.

Rituals have been very badly implemented. Casting times seem arbitrarily long in some cases.

TheThan
2009-06-13, 02:33 PM
ok since this is a long post, I've spoilered it.



Dungeons and Dragons 3.x


Likes:

Versatility:
The game is extremely modular. You can create nearly any fantasy setting you wish and it will work within the rules. You can change different parts of the system to suit your tastes, think melee is under powered? There’s TOB, think standard magic is overpowered, there are four different variant systems for it, then there is the variants in arcana unearthed (or is it unearthed arcana?).

Homebrew friendly:
The way they designed classes really does lend to easy homebrewing. This is great if you’re creative or just have something specific in mind.

Options:
Because the system has been out for a while, there are plenty of options for players and Dms alike. There’s like 5 Monster manuals plus I think 2 fiend folios, that’s a lot of monsters to pick from. Then there is the options of advancing monsters, adding class levels and templates.
Your player has an idea for a race or class for his next character; there are tons of races and many, many more classes to chooses from.

SRD:
The system reference document is a tremendous resource to have. Since it’s free and online its easy to gain access to it when you need to do something like create a character or look up a rule, monster, spell etc. its also easy and fast to sort through it when looking for something.


Dislikes:


Combat sucks:
Doing anything outside of straight hit point damage is difficult for a character to pull off, and hard for a player to be able to do. This goes against the basic idea of the game: kill monsters, take their stuff. Oddly enough this leads to two different styles of characters; straight hit point damage (PA great sword), and specialized characters that are good at doing an advanced attack (trip monkeys, uberchargers). The problem is they become so specialized that they are easily thwarted and have no versatility.

Too powerful magic:
The casting system is very solid system; it works exactly like any system based on levels should work. The problem is not wit the system, it with the spells themselves. There are many spells that circumvent encounters. Spells like fly and Teleport allow a party to bypass obstacles the Dm puts in their way. These spells should be very limited but still useful for the players.

Skill system:
To me at least the skill system is wonky. Its based entirely on points, not levels, like everything else in the system. Which means its very easy to specialize in any one or two skills, and never fail that skill (remember there is no auto-fail). I’ve seen characters roll 1s and still make the DC. I’ve seen characters take –20 to their check and still make the check to that skill. This is wrong, characters should have always have the chance of failure, with this system, players can set themselves up to simply never fail a given check.




Dungeons and dragons 4E


Likes:


Powers:
I like the idea of powers; they replace the complicated, difficult and confusing combat options that are in 3.5. This simply put, makes combat fun again and removes the side effects I mentioned above.

Skill system:
They made the skill system scale with level, like they should have back in 3.x. They also condensed several skills down into the same skill, reducing the total number of skills you have. So now you don’t have to decide whether you want spot or listen maxed, you get both.

Races:
I like what they did with most of the races, while I don’t particularly like the dragonborn or the new take on Tieflings, I can live with it. I think they interpreted the other six races very well, and I applaud them for doing a fairly good job of it.




Dislikes



Powers
While I like the idea of powers (you execute this attack, an effect happens). I dislike how they implemented them. The at will/encounter/daily design allows for a tremendous amount of combat to occur as you never really run out of powers. That is what I don’t like, because your special fighting abilities are totally unhindered, there is no reason to actually make normal attacks. In my opinion there should always be a reason to simply smack something in the head. In addition there is also no real reason to rest, other than to regenerate healing surges.

In addition to this, because the spell casting classes use the system for their magic, the two are largely transparent. You can easily switch a wizard’s magic spell with a fighter’s combat power and make virtually no alterations to the two powers. Basically everything is the same, while its balanced well, it’s also rather boring to play.

Another thing I find rather bizarre is the strange attack types. I can see strength, dexterity and charisma as attack types, but Int and Con and wisdom don’t make sense, “I’m smarter than you, so you take damage”, guh, it just makes my head hurt trying to wrap it around it.

Shorthand
I dislike having to decipher shorthand to understand having to use the game. It’s annoying and mostly unnecessary. Once you learn a power, you’ll know how it works without having to look it up anyway so this is just an annoyance.


Lack of Versatility:
Because both the magic and melee system are the same it doesn’t give you any real versatility. In order to change anything in the game, you literally have to rebuild the system to change something that you don’t like. Which leads me to my next point.

Homebrew hostile:
in order to homebrew you have to either follow the design parameters of the game. The at will/encounter/daily power system. If you don’t want to use that system and choose to try to break away from it, you have to design your own system instead of just implementing a new aspect of the game.

No SRD:
Because there is no SRD for use by the gaming public, there is no easy or free resource to have at your fingertips when you need to look up something. Which means you have to flip through the rulebooks in order to find that one thing your forgetting how to do.

Goatman_Ted
2009-06-13, 02:38 PM
I don't know 4E or what carries over to it.

But what I dislike about 3.5 (and I know splatbooks and homebrewing negate some of these troubles):

The Feat-centric approach to abilities
The game assumes a character can't do something unless there's a feat for it. I liked Complete Adventurer's skill section in the way it gave new ideas on applications for existing character abilities without adding new feats to use them.

I think I'd honestly prefer a system where all actions were open for any character to perform, but success would vary depend on build choices (so options like Power Attack, Weapon Finesse, Manyshot, Sculpt Spell, Heedless Charge [and other actions as conceived by players] would be options as much as Trips, Defensive Fighting and Sunders, and feats would be boring numeric bonuses that scale with level -- the base assumption would be hat any character can attempt something, but consistant success would depend on investments within the build).

One-dimensional class features [and flat-out immunities]
When a Fighter isn't killing things, when a Barbarian faces enemies with Elusive Target, when a Focused Enchanter faces undead or Mind Blanks, the game becomes incredibly demanding on the DM. Without constant quick-thinking, there's very little to give the characters to do. The 'you can do anything, but with modifiers' mentality can make this a bit less of a problem, but many classes need a bit of diversity in their abilities.

Abilities like Mind Blank, True Seeing and fortification effects just make this worse. I like that they make some approaches to problem-solving difficult, but I don't like that they make those approaches impossible. If an Enchanter had a way to overcome Mind Blank (by burning more slots, increasing casting time, taking ability damage -- something that makes it unattractive but doable).

Limitless class abilities
Putting classes like the Wizard next to classes like the Fighter boggles my mind. The Fighter is [designed to be] good at one thing: combat. The Wizard, on the other hand, is great at everything -- combat, diplomacy, problem-solving (it's much easier to get around obstacles when a wave of the hand can make anyone your friend, can move you thousand of kilometers, can obliterate an obstacle or wall, or can call super-powered allies into existance).

The Beguiler, Barbarian and [non-Substitute Powers] Ardent are examples of what I want to see from classes -- each can have multiple schticks and areas of expertise, but all have limits.

Magic Item dependance
I don't like characters decked out with 20+ magic items, but it's the default assumption of the system. I don't even like having to give each character a magic item but without doing so, many characters become useless (what good is a Fighter who can't even reach the fight?) If characters are expected to have certain abilities, I'd rather the system just gave them to the classes rather than pressure my campaigns to have magic loot in every dungeon, castle and hovel.

Magic that's meaningless
3.5 expects +1 Swords to exist, Cloaks of +1 Resistance, etc. If I put a magic item into my setting, I want it to be powerful. I want them to mattter. I want items to give bonuses depending on the power of their wielders and to have real, tangible effects when used -- if I give a sword to a level 4 Fighter, it might start as a +1 Longsword, but in the hands of a higher-level character, I want it to be powerful: I want it to deflect spells, to cut through solid stone, to significantly turn combat in the wielder's favor.

...I can do most of this as a DM, but it's almost all outright contradictory to the assumptions of the system.

Edit (after TheThan's post):
Also, Vancian Casting
Seriously, what the ****? It's conterintuitive, inelegant and it doesn't match any traditional archetype. A Beguiler or Dread Necromancer with Reserve Feats is much closer to how I -- and I believe most people -- conceive of a magic-user. If reistance were made more rare and the effects of their spells were made more versatile, an Energy-Specific Warmage would also fit the bill of 'What I expect of spellcasters.'

Double Edit:
...And Alignment
I hate alignment so... It's not interesting, it makes moral conundrums uninteresting. Who decided that morality would be objective? It's crazy and often abused to excuse bad roleplaying.

TheThan
2009-06-13, 02:56 PM
Goatman’s two last points are two that I also share, I just forgot to put it down in my previous post.

potatocubed
2009-06-13, 02:59 PM
Alrighty...

3.5
The biggest problem I have with 3.5 is that the power gap between an optimised and an unoptimised character is too wide. In order to play it as a gamist game you have to learn and understand the system very thoroughly, so does your GM, and there are good odds that all the other players will have to do the same to avoid being completely overshadowed. (Not absolutely true, but a general tendency.) Although there is a gap in effectiveness between optimised and un- in 4e, it's narrower. The GM, especially, has a much easier time of it when it comes to creating challenging enemies.

Another problem I have with 3.5 gamism is that, despite the many options available (fewer for fighters, more for wizards, but many in any case) there will usually be one or two which are almost always the best choice, regardless of situation. Looking at a fighter's melee combat options (since they're pretty simple): you can attack, you can disarm, or sunder, or trip, or bull rush. Of these options, attacking and tripping are the two that you will use pretty much to the exclusion of everything else. Yes, you can build to get around this, or maybe you want to take someone alive so you disarm them, but the general point is that the good options and the bad options remain the same regardless of circumstances. It gets even worse with spell selections.

4e
As a combat game, 4e is really good. You almost always have a variety of tactical choices and the 'right choice' can vary depending on circumstances.

Out of combat, it kind of falls apart. Skill challenges are gamist, but they just don't work on several levels. Even when they do work, they're just not worth the effort you put into setting them up.

Edit
Upon reflection, I think also that the two games require different skill sets from the GM in order to provide meaningful challenges for the player characters. Which is better from a gamist point of view will depend, to an extent, on if your GM is more capable at 3.5 encounter design or 4e encounter design.

AstralFire
2009-06-13, 03:05 PM
In 3.5:

- I dislike the amount of book-keeping in higher level play.
- I dislike the inherent oversimplicity of the default melee system.
- I dislike the fact that artillery is never as effective as reality bending.
- I dislike the lack of decent support for ranged attack and 'fight-as-you-cast' (as opposed to fight or cast every round - think Benders, not Gishes) systems.
- I dislike the Christmas tree syndrome where you're supposed to end up with huge inventories (See point 1) rather than a few notable bits.

Haven't played 4E enough to verbalize a dislike to my satisfaction.

Yora
2009-06-13, 03:10 PM
Helmet slots!

Were I am from, we call it head.

Alignment makes no sense.
All classes are the same with the powers differently named.
The books read like an excel sheet. It just makes me think in pure bare numbers with completely fading out how it would look if people use the abilities.
It's a pnp game, that has D&D on it's cover for marketing reasons.

I think that's all. There would probably be much more if I'd actually get into the game, but I just don't see why I should. I don't start playing GURPS or Vampire just because it's on the market.

mistformsquirrl
2009-06-13, 03:18 PM
3.5e - Dislike that one of my favorite classes (Fighter) is widely considered to be a waste of a character. (Of course I"ll still play them - I'll play anything if it fits my concept - but there's no denying fighters get the short end of the stick in a lot of ways.)

Dislike particularly that many casters can eventually do anything your non-caster can do; and probably do it better. In other words, unless either the caster player or DM reign them in, a non-caster is a waste of space. (Again, I still play them, because I enjoy them. I just don't like that the potential for being blown out of the water in my own forte exists as a possibility for someone who also does everything else as well.

Don't like some of the oddball rules quirks - like "Do I have to lower spell resistance so you can buff me?" - Easily houseruled into whatever you prefer, but the potential for argument is irritating.

Minor inconvienence, but I really hate gearing up for an adventure <x_x>;; ie: buying a backpack, bedroll, etc... I know somewhere I saw an "Adventurer's Kit" where you pay one price and get the standard stuff, but I can't remember where it is. Definitely one of those things that should have been in the PHB in the first place anyway imo. (Yeah, it's minor, but it is a gripe).

4e - Dislike the lack of true multiclassing. Supposedly it's coming in PHBIII, but until I see it and can determine if I like it or not, I'm still counting this one.

Find some of the restrictions really annoying - ex: Implements often being rather specific. (Dagger or Staff for a Sorcerer for example) - houserule fixes this one if you want to use something else, but again, potential for arguments and silliness that I, as a DM and player, would rather not put up with.

On that same note, I dislike how if you want to dual wield your only real option seems to be Ranger. Same for using a bow well. I liked that in 3.5e, a Fighter could also be a fantastic bow user if they wanted. I mean, just because you're skilled with the bow doesn't mean you should in any way know anything about animals, tracking, outdoor living, etc... Plenty of concepts for an archer that has nothing to do with being a ranger - dual wield is likewise.

I've got very mixed feelings about Healing Surges as well. I honestly prefer 3.5 and previous in regard to Clerics being able to act as walking bandaids (if they so desired). Keeping in mind my play of 4e has been substantially less than 3.5e; but from what I've seen healing powers are almost all "I let you heal yourself with a small bonus." rather than "I heal you."

I guess to sum up my largest gripe in 4e - I feel like variety of concept per-class was tossed aside in favor of much narrower class definitions. That is: A fighter is no longer simply an elite warrior who can train themselves to do just about anything in combat. Now - A fighter is explicitly a melee combatant who uses a weapon and shield combo or a great weapon.

Dual wielding is restricted to rangers, as is any substantial use of the bow as a weapon.

I don't mind the diversification of casters as much, as their powers naturally lend to specific themes; and, myself excepted, not a whole lot of people seem to care much about what weapon their caster wields. But the narrowing of non-casters weapon choices is much more frustrating, as in many cases the choice of weapon has a thematic purpose; at least for myself.

One of my favorite 3.5e characters was a dual wielding elf paladin; something that in 4e, at least as of right now, doesn't really work.

(And no, to me, just holding the weapon and getting a damage bonus for it doesn't feel right at all honestly.)

--

Ultimately, there's stuff I love and loathe about both systems. 3.5e gives me vastly more freedom, but if the DM isn't on the ball, other players can make me look utterly impotent, even if I've actually optimized myself. (Something I rarely do to any real extent - I mean I don't build characters to be weak, but I'm willing to sacrifice power for RP most often if I feel it's appropriate.)

4e fixes that problem... but unfortunately also kills a lot of my characterful choices, meaning I have to work with the DM so I can play the character I want; or fit into someone else's mold. The former isn't a big deal so long as the DM is willing, but it can have unforseen consequences and of course means it requires more work. I hate feeling like the rules are against me, rather than working with me. The latter of course means giving up the thing that makes D&D worth playing for me: imagination. Yes, there's room for variation within each class, but not enough that I actually feel I can do what I want.

Obviously the above is all just personal opinion, some, maybe all, is irrelevant for a lot of folks; but that's pretty much the way I see it.

*edit*

I should add that I'm perfectly willing to play both, though I prefer 3.5e as I know it better and have more options. Still, a good DM can make almost any system work.

TheThan
2009-06-13, 03:19 PM
Edit (after TheThan's post):
Also, Vancian Casting
Seriously, what the ****? It's conterintuitive, inelegant and it doesn't match any traditional archetype. A Beguiler or Dread Necromancer with Reserve Feats is much closer to how I -- and I believe most people -- conceive of a magic-user. If reistance were made more rare and the effects of their spells were made more versatile, an Energy-Specific Warmage would also fit the bill of 'What I expect of spellcasters.'


I’m curious as to what you find counter-intuitive about the system?
I don’t think I know what Reserve feats are.

Goatman_Ted
2009-06-13, 03:29 PM
I’m curious as to what you find counter-intuitive about the system?
I don’t think I know what Reserve feats are.

No spellcaster from Merlin to Ted the Enchanter (in popularized fiction) has had to work under the sort of restraints implied by the Vancian system. Either they could cast something or they couldn't. There was no 8 hours required rest, no blind prediction of the day's needs.

When I started the game, I couldn't understand why the game would use this system. It didn't make sense, it didn't have any familiar precedence (I suppose if I read fantasy novels or had played earlier versions of the game I would understand, but it didn't fit with anything I knew). It felt artificial and it awkward... in a per-day system, if character has the power to cast multiple spells per day and is able to memorize several spells in the morning, why doesn't it at least work like the Erudite or Spirit Shaman (choosing a list of spells to cast spontaneously from every day)? And why did my super-intelligent character forget the spells he'd memorized every 24 hours?

From a balance perspective, I could even grant the per-day mechanic some respect, even if I didn't like it. But the 'memorization' thing didn't make any sense.

I've heard similar responses to the system from most new players I've introduced or seen introduced to the system.

Reserve feats let a character create weak magical effects at will. The Wizard running out of magical mojo always struck me as an odd choice in terms of design. These let the casters use spells all day without actually making them more powerful.

RelentlessImp
2009-06-13, 03:37 PM
3.5
Inequal amount of splatbooks (even with the sheer variety) that brings equality to the differing party roles. For every new trick a melee-type gets, a caster will often get 4-5 new tricks per book. (As much as I love playing casters, I dislike that my melee-focused friends have to work ten times as hard as I do to have a strong character.)

As has been mentioned - Grappling rules.


4E
Customization difficulties. Might just be me, but I have problems wrapping my head around exactly how you're going to customize a 4E character.

Combat in general; turns what in 3.5 could have been 3-4 rounds of combat into 10-15 rounds, as everyone whittles at their target's HP.

Healing; why even have a class that has the ability to heal (Cleric) when that's going to cost the people they heal a Healing Surge, when they could have used the Healing Surge on their own?

Thajocoth
2009-06-13, 03:45 PM
3.x - I haven't played it, but everything I've heard sounds like it's constantly punishing the player for playing... The more interesting what you choose to be is, the longer it takes you to level up (level adjustment), enemies can de-level you instantly (wights), you have to spend your xp on spells and items, and you can die instantly from something supposedly on-level... I could be dead wrong about any of that though. At the same time though, it sounds like there are more customization options, both for better (some interesting stuff) and for worse (very unbalanced). Some things that I've wanted to play seem like I'd have to switch to 3.x to try them, like an Illithid or an Ooze creature.

4 - I dislike their current decision to cease selling pdfs more than anything else. Additionally, the rituals and multiclassing need work. There are also things that need to be explained better, like skill challenges, as many people don't seem to understand them. I do like the skill challenges though. They allow the GM to give out of combat flavor, like having a drinking contest or trying to get information from a reluctant informant, and still give you xp for it. I like that it's easy to start up and get going, though it could still take several sessions to get the hang of. I like that minions can be used to give the effect of a large horde of enemies without having such low defenses that they all die immediately.

TSED
2009-06-13, 03:56 PM
Likes:

3.5:
1) Sheer variety possible. If I wanted to, I could make a sentient gelatinous cube character, and find ways to make it mechanically effective (but maybe not the MOST effective). If you want to, you can get squirrels in plate mail and paladin levels. A toy doll that woke up and decided it wanted to swing a greatsword at people. And the genre stereotypes, of course.
2) Relatively easy to remember the rules. "Roll dice, add attack bonus, see if you hit AC. Roll dice, add save bonus, see if you saved." Keep in mind I am comparing that more to 2nd ed than 4th, though.
3) Familiarity. I've been working with it for a fair while, so, yeah.
4) Diversity. You can get political intrigue, a hack & slash, post-apocalyptic, and a tomb-of-horrors-developed-phobia-of-EVERYTHING with the exact same PARTY. It may not be the best suited to these tasks, but this is a very flexible system.
5) Right there, what I just said. Flexibility. The system can do anything if you try hard enough.

4th Ed:
1) Balance.
2) Yeah, mostly just balance.


Dislikes:

3.5
1) Grappling
2) Balance disparity. While I don't mind a little bit of imbalance, melee just don't get the same amount of love inherently.
2b) Feat disparity. Gosh darn it, feats, why do you have an awesome name and then go and do something like add +2 to a roll you only make once every 10 sessions?



4th ed
1) All characters feel the same.
2) Minions have 1hp! liek omg im such a hreo i cna beta up drgonz w 1hp!
3) Gnomes? We don't know what you're talking about.
4) Halflings look terrifying now.

TheThan
2009-06-13, 04:03 PM
@goatman

Ah you seem to be mixing fluff and mechanics a bit. It’s understandable, really, if you’ve only been exposed to a certain flavor of magic, why wouldn’t you expect to see that same magic in a fantasy game?

Anyway if it helps you, think of the spells per day set up as fatigue. Casting magic is mentally draining which limits the amount of spells a spell caster can cast per day. Some spells are more fatiguing than others are so they can only cast so many of any given spell level per day. Resting allows the wizard to rest his mind and start fresh each day.

AstralFire
2009-06-13, 04:08 PM
Than, for Afro's sake, please try to keep discussion off of this thread; it's just to survey information, and the more posts begin to look like a discussion in here, the faster we get D&D Godwin'd.

Yuki Akuma
2009-06-13, 04:10 PM
Vancian

Spells in D&D (and Jack Vance's novels) are very complex. They take a long time to cast and it isn't really useful in combat. So spellcasters get most of the casting out of the way at the beginning of the day, then 'suspend' the spells and store them in their mind, to be activated later.

Oh, and even Merlin 'hung' complex spells so he could cast them on-demand later on, and the same sort of thing crops up in tons of fantasy novels.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-06-13, 04:15 PM
Ignore discussion, and it will go away. Don't add more completely off-topic posts to the discussion.

3.5 criticism has been outlined far more effectively than I ever could.

4e criticism...
1) Alignment. What the hell? It's even more vague than it used to be, flies in the face of decades of established alignment philosophy, and sends a philosophical message that I object to. I'd personally keep the old system; but removing alignment entirely is better than what they did to it. A generation of players will be tainted by the philosophy, and I fear the backlash will kill alignment fully and truly.
2) Minions aren't affected by powers that deal half damage on a (whatever). That throws a huge wrench in tactics, and the only way I see to remedy it would be to give them more than 1 hp; which has its own problems...

sonofzeal
2009-06-13, 04:17 PM
3e
Vancian casting (Seriously, wtf. This is the #1 reason I like psionics)
Suckitude at levels 1-2 (You usually need to be lvl 3 to be decent even inside your specialty)
Terrible balance at levels 15-20 (It's flawed earlier, but this is where it really starts falling apart)
Rocket tag (Not particularly fun for anyone)


4e - based on highly limited experience
Inflexibility of powers ("what do you mean I can't cast grease on the walls of a well?")
Skill challenges (enough has been said on this subject already)
Lack of variety (even WoW had Rage vs Energy vs Mana)

AslanCross
2009-06-13, 04:27 PM
3.5
1. Balance is out of whack. A manifold problem: Core was bad enough, but splatbooks made it worse by beefing casters in almost every book that came out. May have been fixed by ToB, but the general issue is still caster vs noncaster.

2. Some options could have been streamlined. Mostly this refers to skills (Search and Spot having to be developed seperately, for example).

3. Inelegant encounter design, especially with regard to uneven CR.

4. Someone really needs to do something about the character level/dungeon level/spell level/caster level nomenclature.

4E
1. Lack of customizability. While the Power Source/Role framework tries to have everyone covered, I think it still limits character conceptualization to have a single class. I mean, I can't really have a divine-oriented character who fights with two weapons and can sneak attack (which I can do in 3.5 if I really wanted to, optimization be damned).

2. Powers are all combat-oriented. Sure, D&D is a combat-oriented RPG that had its origins in a war game, but combat isn't all we do. Even worse is how powers really lack in variety. Everyone eventually has a "move opponent X squares" or "deal X damage and stun" power.

3. Healing Surges and how the cleric heals someone.

Faleldir
2009-06-13, 04:51 PM
Third edition: Feat chains. Way too many feats in 3.5 only exist to serve as prerequisites for feats you actually want, and most feats have no logical connection to their prerequisites. Why does Whirlwind Attack require Spring Attack? Of course, no one actually takes Whirlwind Attack; it's just an example.
Fourth edition: Encounter and daily powers. I know it's been said a million times before and I should give it a chance, but I find them too restrictive. It seems like 90% of the time, you'll be using the same two at-will powers you started with. Adapting the psionics system would be just as simple, just as balanced, and more like a video game.

Zaq
2009-06-13, 05:23 PM
Since I haven't really played 4e, I won't comment much on it. All I'll say is that there's not enough options yet. I'm an option whore. Always have been.

Now, for 3.5...

-Uneven power advancement. There's a few things that are front-loaded, and then there are the J-curves. So many J-curves. There are SOME classes that tend to have even power advancement... off the top of my head, I would say the Incarnate, the Binder, and maybe the PsyWar have a relatively even power curve. They don't spike upwards like a few infamous classes do, and they don't putter out like a few other infamous classes do. Comparatively speaking, anyway.

-"Well, I'm useless" syndrome. There's far too much in 3.5 that can make a player just set down the dice, sit back, and say "well, I'm useless." It comes from all directions, too. Failing against a save-or-suck. Being pitted against monsters immune to you (the "Rogue in Ravenloft" problem). Being totally overshadowed by a J-curving ally. Losing a really critical magic item (not every loss of magic items can cause this, sure, but there are some items that basically form the lynchpin between competence and suckitude). At lower levels, running out of your meager supply of per-day resources (this is less aimed at the wizard and more at, say, the hexblade, or the shadowcaster, or the knight, or the lurk...). Sure, a good GM can mitigate this, but it's a lot of work to do so and still provide a fun and challenging environment for everyone.

-Tying into the last one, the way that everything is so binary. While I generally like the d20 model ("if d20 + mods > or = target, good things. If d20 + mods < target, bad things."), there's a lot in 3.5 that is far too binary to be a lot of fun. Either the poison works or it doesn't. Either you can use the trick this feat offers or you can't. There's also too many absolutes for my taste... no, you can't even try to use mind-affecting spells against this enemy. Not at a reduced DC, not with a caster level check, nothing. Sometimes, these absolutes are appropriate, but too often they're not.

-Magical overlap. A big part of what makes full casters, especially but not limited to wizards, so overpowered is the fact that they can take on whatever role they please. This is not only magic making, for instance, many skill checks irrelevant, but also "traditional" (arcane/divine) magic making other magic systems irrelevant. Why even bother playing a Shadowcaster, for example, when almost all of your mysteries are basically reflavored Wizard spells? Even within magic there's a lot of overlap... for instance, the fact that Conjuration can do nearly anything. It's not so much that there are too many options for what magic can do (options are a good thing. Really.), it's simply that they're not exclusive enough. There's very little that's truly unique when you mix in mid-to-high level magic. Make something a Bard spell only. Give that trick only to the Ardent. Whatever. The biggest divide in 3.5 has always been "caster vs. non-caster," but even when comparing two casters, there's often a lot more that they have in common than they have separately. You can choose to ignore these options, but as the years have gone by, they've become more or less standard issue, and you're expected to have them one way or another... so you're kind of gimping yourself, and by extension your party, if you choose to ignore too many of them. Shame.

I still love 3.5. But these are my biggest gripes with it, besides what everyone else has said (unbalanced classes, the increasing irrelevance of HP, etc. etc. etc.).

nefele
2009-06-13, 05:57 PM
3.5 stuff I dislike:


Balance of course, or lack thereof, especially since there was no need at all to make full casters so powerful. A slower progression of spells, excluding a few ridiculous spells (and perhaps reining the million ways to reduce casting time) was all that was needed for casters and non-casters to be on the same level of power - which is all Character Level is supposed to be about.
Not very good out of combat support. There are spells (which doesn't do much about that balance thingy) and there are skill checks (which need a major fix). Skill points are too few, skills are too spread out and specialized, fixed DCs are a bad idea and Social Skills are a disaster.
The utterly unnecessary dependency on magic items, especially those that don't do anything, but simply provide a bonus. If I need a +2 weapon, a +2 armor and a +2 cloak of resistance only to match the "appropriate level encounter" that the designers had in mind, why not incorporate those bonuses to the class progression and get done with it?
The general mayhem that ensues if you don't stick to WBL, or want a low-magic setting. Mechanics should make no assumptions about such things, they should work more or less equally in all settings. Or at least provide a way to make them feasible.
At high levels, everything falls apart. CRs are random, combat can either take forever or be resolved with a single roll, the gap between full casters and non-casters becomes ridiculous, and everyone in the party is required to have the same level of optimization or the DM has an awful time trying to keep everyone satisfied.
Making a high-level ToB character (and I love ToB) is a book-keeping nightmare, with the prerequisites and swapping maneuvers. There had to be a simpler, less time-consuming way. (Or at the very least, a cleverly designed table in the book, so that you don't have to flip through pages for hours...)
Some things and a couple of whole books are so broken that they shouldn't exist: Savage Species and Complete Champion come to mind.
Alignment (regardless of what I think of it as a concept, which is not much) should have no business whatsoever with the mechanics. As is, you need 348 houserules to get rid of it and it doesn't add anything from a "gamist" point of view. All it does is impose fluff.
And more generally, the predetermined "generic setting" fluff gets into my crunch way too often, and I don't want it there. Examples: exotic weapons which are exotic not because they are difficult to wield, but because they aren't western. Dwarves getting racial bonus Vs orcs even if they haven't seen an orc in their life. The planes as a whole - at least the aligned ones.



P.S. - That said, I enjoy 3.5 immensely, but with many many house rules. I certainly wouldn't enjoy it so much out of the box. I've read the 4E books and rather disliked them, but I haven't played at all. So I can only compare 3.5 with 2nd Edition - and the ideal D&D in my mind.

Zeta Kai
2009-06-13, 07:29 PM
J-curves

I'm sorry to interrupt with a discussion topic, but what the hell is a J-curve? :smallconfused:

Alteran
2009-06-13, 07:30 PM
I'm guessing here, but it's probably a power curve shaped like a J. Starts out reasonably good, gets really bad, then shoots all the way to the top.

TheThan
2009-06-13, 10:56 PM
I found something else I don’t really care for. That is WOTC’s assumption that everything 4E they print is now core.

I’m sorry, I thought as the Dm I was in charge of what goes into my game. In addition to that, what makes them think I’m even interested in putting their stuff into my game, or that their new class/race/monster even fits into the game I’m running or playing in.

(at least that's what I've heard, if I'm wrong please feel free to correct me).

Zeta Kai
2009-06-14, 12:03 AM
I found something else I don’t really care for. That is WOTC’s assumption that everything 4E they print is now core.

I’m sorry, I thought as the Dm I was in charge of what goes into my game. In addition to that, what makes them think I’m even interested in putting their stuff into my game, or that their new class/race/monster even fits into the game I’m running or playing in.

(at least that's what I've heard, if I'm wrong please feel free to correct me).

Off-Topic Rant
This isn't a gamist concern so much as a marketing tactic to drive sales that is annoying as all hell. Does anybody take their assertions at face value on this issue? Anybody? Anybody at all?

It's a major peeve of mine, as well; one that I pile on the heap of things that I don't like about a company that I once loved & wanted to work for. I know that "Core" is a somewhat arbitrary designation, but the common understanding is that a Core book is defined as one that you cannot really play the game without. To play a game of 3E D&D, you need the PHB, the MM, & the DMG (some people say that the MM is unnecessary, but even for a crazed homebrewer like me, that book is indispensable). To play a game of NWOD, you need the World of Darkness & whatever genre book that you're into.

But according to the publisher, for 4E, you need half a dozen books just to play the game. Which each retail for $25-30. Do they really expect that every player is gonna shell out $200+ dollars to play their little wargame? And that players can't do without one to play with any of the non-core material? And what non-core material am I talking about anyway?

Maerok
2009-06-14, 12:28 AM
3.5:
-Unequal power between casters and warriors; casters have an insane level of versatility which continues to be fed by inane and unnecessary spells. There's a spell for *everything*.
-Too much emphasis on feat selection in order to remain viable.
-Keeping track of items/money; the Adventuring Gear section is the bane of my existence.
-Skill points.

4.0
-Tieflings...

Mystic Muse
2009-06-14, 12:51 AM
4th edition. combat takes forever, the characters are too similar, the designers of scales of war for it are apparently morons to think our group could kill those monsters, multiclassing completely sucks, you get better powers until like level 16 and then they all kind of start to suck, no stat boosting magic items.

3.5 talking with NPCs takes too long, casters are too powerful and Paladins have to be lawful good.

I personally have no problem with alignment. it keeps evil players out of my game and I love it for that.:smalltongue:

TheThan
2009-06-14, 12:58 AM
Off-Topic Rant


That’s just the thing, by labeling everything they print as core, they are indicating that you have to have it in order to play (regardless of the facts at hand). It’s rather ridiculous and they can’t realistically expect people to buy all their crap. But still that assumption is there, and it slaps many people in the face. Sure most people take it with an unhealthy large dosage of salt. But its there and its not something easily ignored.

This also has a side effect of leading people to feelings of entitlement (or greater feelings of entitlement).

“What do you mean you won’t let me play that? According to WOTC its core… see right here its core!”

I feel this is a legitimate complaint about the direction that WOTC has headed. So I posted it, I suppose I should have been a bit more specific in my previous post, but I’ve picked up a cold and am currently not always fully coherent. Come to think of it I should have saved this for another thread, but you’ve read it, you can’t unread (The internet: rule 26).

Zeta Kai
2009-06-14, 08:15 AM
Off-Topic Rant

I'm glad that you agree with everything I said. :smallcool: You've rephrased my points quite well, thank you.

TheThan
2009-06-14, 12:05 PM
Yep

Anyway I’ve said my piece so I’m done, (nice to get things off your chest after all). I’ll keep an eye on this thread though, might even pop in on occasion.

Master_Rahl22
2009-06-14, 02:11 PM
3.5:
-Balance. I don't need to say any more
-It takes hours (days) to make a character. You have to plan out every PrC, Feat, and magic item you will need to make that character successful, unless you're playing a caster. See #1.
-Level 1 sucks. I have a lvl 1 Monk that I rolled that has a perfect combat record - he's been knocked unconscious every time. That's with 15 Dex, 15 Wis, and 14 Con. If it wasn't for the NPC's that win combats and carry potions, this character would've been dead after 1 fight.
-Assigning skills can be complicated. If you're starting around lvl 6 or higher, you have a large number of skill points, and potentially 2 or 3 classes with different numbers of them.
-It's hard to protect your friends. If I want to be a Fighter and protect the squishy casters, I either need to go all out with Spiked Chain Tripping Cheese, or I have absolutely no way to keep enemies from hitting my friends. They see me in my armor with a big sword and they run around me to one-shot the Wizard or whatever.
-Too many options. Some people say that they can never have enough options, but in addition to making character creation take forever, when some options are better in every way than others, then you don't *really* have options, do you?

4E:
I've only played 2 sessions of this. I've made mulitple characters and read through the 3 core books. I haven't yet found anything I dislike, and every one of my dislikes from 3.5E has been fixed.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-06-14, 02:57 PM
That is WOTC’s assumption that everything 4E they print is now core.

PS: I dislike the massive jargon changes that 4e has invoked. I don't care if 4E is "really D&D" or not, that's a pointless semantics argument; but 4E has undergone a vast change in prominent terminology. See the word clouds in this link (http://www.thealexandrian.net/archive/archive2009-02d.html) for evidence.

erikun
2009-06-14, 10:09 PM
Prepare yourself for a lengthy post. (Or just skip over it, your choice.) A number of these have no-doubt been said by others in this thread, but I feel making my personal moan-fest a very complete moan-fest. :smallsmile: So without further ado:

D&D is about killing stuff and taking their stuff. Also, leveling up. This may look absurdly silly to see in print, but it tends to dominate the playstyle of D&D. Taking a look at a number of other game systems - White Wolf, Shadowrun, heck, Mutants and Masterminds - and you don't see such focus on killing large hordes of enemies.

Now, don't think this is a limit to roleplaying. You can roleplay just fine, reguarless of how much combat is in the game. Heck, you can roleplay IN combat just fine - it provides excellent motivations for characters to interact and intercommunicate. However, the other systems I mentioned above all share something in common - they all grant rewards (XP, money, etc) for achieving a goal, not for killing an enemy. D&D grants rewards for killing stuff. While this doesn't force the DM or PCs to run around killing everything, it does mean that most activities - reguardless of how much talking, sneaking, or exploring you do - will revolve around killing stuff and taking their stuff.

3e class imbalance renders some classes impotent, makes some characters useless in specific (usually common) situations, and turns non-casters into a peanut gallery at the highest levels. Sneak Attack-immune or magic-immune will turn rogues and wizards, respectively, into people afraid to shoot enemies with crossbows because they didn't waste a feat on Precise Shot.

The fighter's 10+ bonus feats sound nice, until you realize that with feat trees, this turns into about 3-4 class abilities. Monks are cursed with low BAB and non-magical weapons that can't overcome Damage Reduction, unless you count attempting to flurry with something equilivant to a dagger. For that matter, just compare the core Fighter to the Psionic Warrior or Swordsage for an idea of just how unequal these "similar" classes can be.

3e multiclassing does not work like it is supposed to. You either end up with a half-caster who can't fight with magic (because everything saves or shrugs off the damage) or an eight-class fighting-man gish with abilities cherry-picked from a list of unrelated classes.

3e feat system does not work as intended. Some feats seem to allow "new" attacks, but are really just allowing you to use the basic combat attacks without completely failing at them - Charging, Trip, Disarm, Sunder, Grapple, and so on. You could technically do so without the feats, but the penalities for doing so are so severe that it's worse than simply passing for the round. If these are supposed to be "options" in combat, why limit their use to only people who have the feat? Isn't that just another way of saying "you can't do that"?

Secondly, feat trees. Feat trees are supposed to be building up for a good ability, but the generally bad feat prerequisites (Dodge) just mean you're spending 3-4 feats for one real ability. The fact that it's an excuse to add broken abilities isn't much better - it just makes the game more imbalanced and worse for everyone involved.

3e skill system does not work as intended. On the outside, it appears to work like Shadowrun's skill system - put skill points into a few skills for narrow focus, or spread them out to be well rounded. Given the level-based nature of D&D, though, you end up with two senarios: either have max skill ranks and nearly always succeed, or have no skill ranks and nearly always fail. Trying to spread out tends to fall into the second category more often than the first. The fact that some skills seem to be called for anytime the situation might call for it just makes matters worse, casuing untold millions of fighters, clerics, and wizards to tumble down cliffsides or slip on narrow walkways every year.

3e Prestige Class requirements, while we're on it, have the same problem as feat trees - they're mainly there to force a character to waste feats and skill points in order to "qualify" for the class. The frequently have questionable relation to the class in question, and fall into the "spend feats to qualify for good stuff" ideology.

3e combat, although I think I covered most of this in the feats section. While combat offers a number of alternatives to swinging a sword, 90% of them are detrimental to even attempt unless your character is "build" to do so... and when they are, that's frequently all they can really do.

3e has a lot of "not what was advertised on the tin" senarios. Specifically, classes having drawbacks that aren't apparent until actually playing the game (monk comes to mind), feats which bonuses are either underpowered or rarely occur, prestige classes which abilities are either underpowered or rarely come into play, spreading out skill points (mentioned above), spells which are either weak, ineffective, or turn out useless in most situations - the list goes on.

3e power spiral. It seems like every new splatbook included something new. However, most didn't seem to bother with interesting alternatives, needed fixes, or tips on design or roleplaying. Rather, they focused on putting new "must have" feats or classes in such books - and by "must have", I mean more powerful than what existed before. And while a DM can certainly ignore what's in any one splatbook, later releases seemed to assume you were using the "must have" options and toned up monsters and encounters as appropriate... meaning you'd need them anyways or fall behind.

For that matter, this is where my experience with the "15 minute Wizard day" comes into play. I've run a wizard twice in 3.5e, and both times I've been through an single encounter that depleted my (what turned out to be partially ineffective) spelllist. I was using primarily core. Now, had I been using Orb spells from Complete Arcane (which wouldn't have their damage halved by saving throws) or metamagic rods from Complete Mage (which would've allowed me to do more damage) or some save-or-suck spell from Complete Spellcaster Buy Me Now, I'm sure I wouldn't need to visit the local inn after the first encounter of the day... but as it was, I was forced to plink away with a crossbow for the rest of the day, or burn up charges on various wands, which no doubt cut into my WBL, making it harder to buy better stuff later. Speaking of which...

3e enforced Wealth-By-Level. Well, technically, it isn't enforced - you didn't NEED to give the PCs magical equipment - but if you didn't, they'd quickly be squished by the CR-appropriate monsters found just about anywhere. Try finding a CR 10 creature that can be taken down with just a masterwork sword, or which can be survived without magical equipment. Go ahead, I'll be waiting.

What's more, WBL assumes that the PCs will use everything the find... which assumes they'll sell the stuff they don't need to buy the stuff they do... which assumes a worldwide Magi-Mart available in most cities which buy magical swords and sell bags of holding. Some equipment, such as silver or oak stakes, could be reasonably found in most places. However, the Paladin finding their own Holy Avenger should be an epic quest taking the party through numerous adventures - it shouldn't involve placing an mail-ship order with the local wizards' guild. It should still be an option to be able to, sure. But it should be an option not to, also.

3e Magic. You roll a to-hit on rays, then the opponent rolls a saving throw to halve (or negate) the spell. For an area attack, they rather roll just reflex save, with Evasion granting full immunity to any who make it. Then you roll caster level to overcome spell resistance, along with any other rolls like displacement or mirror image to see if you actually hit. Finally, you roll damage, which may be halved, quartered, reduced by resistances, or outright ignored if the target happens to be immune. What's more, if any part of that (spell DC, caster level, damage) is lower that what the system assumes - generally full caster progression - you are likely to deal even less/no damage than otherwise expected. Now you know why PrC's are considered bad if they don't have full progression, and why blasting spells are generally considered the worst way for a wizard to go.

I was going to do 4e too, but this post has gone on long enough. :smallmad: To be fair, 3e does have a number of good things going for it - mostly in concept, if not implementation. Psionics, for example, feels like a greatly "fixed" version of the base fighter/cleric/wizard multiclassing system. However, I'm to the point where I won't play any new 3e games unless it's using a character concept I haven't had a chance to use beforehand.

kjones
2009-06-14, 11:05 PM
I don't like the fact that, in 4th edition, it's hard to impose any sort of meaningful long-term status condition that isn't simply damage. My players harp on me for being a big fan of ability damage in 3rd edition, so maybe I just feel its absence acutely. The disease tracks are cool, but not enough on their own - it's a good idea around which to build a system.

Nu
2009-06-14, 11:24 PM
Oooo, I'm a gamist at heart, so this should be easy.

3.5
-No balance exists in core material. Each class seems to exist in a vacuum.
-The game system itself has suffered severely because of the attempts at maintaining a sense of "realism."
-Currently, it is next to impossible to create something in the system that can be balanced against the dozens and dozens of supplements available for the game. Even something as harmless as Locate City can be modified to level a continent.
-Many of the rules are unnecessarily complex, as they ignored the importance of creating a fun and balanced game to try and continue some silly traditions.
-More of the rules are arbitrary. Why does the attacker roll when attacking AC, but the defender rolls when attacking Fortitude, Reflex, or Will? Crafting rules don't work well, can break the economy, etc.

4.0
-Many things do not work properly as the game progresses, showing a lack of sufficient playtesting--a common example is the skill challenge, another good one is the ritual system.
-At higher levels, the most effective way to win an encounter is to simply lock down enemies permanently while you whittle away at their HP for a long time, or simply "go nova" and use a bunch of stacking modifiers with multiple attacks to explode an enemy in a single round. Neither of these make for terribly interesting combat.
-The paladin currently mechanically fails at its role as a defender (though this may change with Divine Power).
-Other assorted class imbalances, such as a fighter with the right build being able to put out a larger damage total than (most) strikers.
-Stacking modifiers need to be brought in line in order to tone down powers that grant multiple attacks. Crits could also be toned down in the same way to discourage "crit fishing."

I could go on for both systems, but I think that should be enough for now.

Gralamin
2009-06-15, 12:13 AM
3e
---
-Not every character can do something interesting. Most are one or two trick ponies, with most of the interesting things being given over only to casters.
-The balance is extermely limited to one playstyle, with a bunch of content that is horribly broken.
-A lot of the design for 3.5, especially feat wise, stops players from being able to do interesting things. Overall, it seems like if you want to try something interesting, there is a feat to let you do that. However, this means if someone wants to do it without the feat, they are penalized, or prevented from doing it for no apparent reason.
- 3.5 Epic is... Less then inspiring, and almost unplayable.

4e
---
-Rituals don't have enough impact for their costs
-Skill challenges have to be fixed
-A Few key things are broken and need to be rebalanced.

Alteran
2009-06-15, 12:35 AM
Off-Topic Rant
This isn't a gamist concern so much as a marketing tactic to drive sales that is annoying as all hell. Does anybody take their assertions at face value on this issue? Anybody? Anybody at all?

It's a major peeve of mine, as well; one that I pile on the heap of things that I don't like about a company that I once loved & wanted to work for. I know that "Core" is a somewhat arbitrary designation, but the common understanding is that a Core book is defined as one that you cannot really play the game without. To play a game of 3E D&D, you need the PHB, the MM, & the DMG (some people say that the MM is unnecessary, but even for a crazed homebrewer like me, that book is indispensable). To play a game of NWOD, you need the World of Darkness & whatever genre book that you're into.

But according to the publisher, for 4E, you need half a dozen books just to play the game. Which each retail for $25-30. Do they really expect that every player is gonna shell out $200+ dollars to play their little wargame? And that players can't do without one to play with any of the non-core material? And what non-core material am I talking about anyway?

Off-Topic Response

I understand what you're saying, but that's not the way I see it. In my case, I started D&D with 4th edition. For me, core was never the PHB1, MM1, and DMG1. It was the PHB, MM, and DMG, including every version of them. I didn't see core as the bare minimum you need to play, because that's never what it was for me. It was just the designation given to the three basic book types. I do understand the implication of calling something "core" (meaning basic, central, whatever), but it wasn't how I treated the term.

So I don't see this as Wizards trying to tell you that you need all of these books to play, or at least, I didn't until somebody else mentioned it. It seems a reasonable enough assumption, but to me, somebody who never knew core as anything else, it's not the way I would think of it. I know that personally it's not the way I've treated it. The requirement my gaming group has is that every player has a PHB, and anyone who wants to try DMing has an MM and a DMG. So while I understand your issue, I get the idea that it really is the sort of issue that you only encounter with people who played 3.5 or earlier editions, because they got used to another definition of core.

This doesn't make your concerns any less valid, it's just another point of view to consider.

Also, "wargame"? Is that a 4e-doesn't-do-roleplaying crack? =P

Brom
2009-06-15, 01:29 AM
I'd love to contribute, but I'd like to hear from the OP or someone rather certain they understand the OP's train of thought - what is gamist theory, and what is the other theory outlined? (There was another I can't remember. I just now read through all the posts, and it's fascinating.)

arguskos
2009-06-15, 01:35 AM
I'd love to contribute, but I'd like to hear from the OP or someone rather certain they understand the OP's train of thought - what is gamist theory, and what is the other theory outlined? (There was another I can't remember. I just now read through all the posts, and it's fascinating.)
Simulationist is the other one.

Here, have a wiki link: Gamist Narrative Simulationist Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_Theory)

9mm
2009-06-15, 01:44 AM
4e:
lack of variety; there is no diffence between hiting it with a sword and spaming thunder spike.
skill chalenges.

3.5:
"the I'm useless" effect
Optimiation can get completely out of control.
wonky classes and features
people's inability to understand grapple rules.

TSED
2009-06-15, 03:43 AM
One thing I forgot to mention about 4th Ed:


REMOVAL OF SOCIAL SKILLS.

This is a HUGE plus!

An NPC should be convinced because the character, in-character, managed to convince it. Not because the player managed to wrangle a +93 to bluff checks.


It helps a lot in roleplaying (ie: ROLEplaying occurs) and it helps mechanically (now you don't have to deal with rogues dumping a full HALF of their skill points into the social stats and trying to balance them against rogues that min-maxed for combat).

Saph
2009-06-15, 05:29 AM
One thing I forgot to mention about 4th Ed:


REMOVAL OF SOCIAL SKILLS.

This is a HUGE plus!

. . . I can't tell if you're trying to be sarcastic here. Either I'm being slow and missed the joke, or you haven't read the 4e Player's Handbook.

First point: 4th Ed's social skills are almost completely identical to 3.5's. Bluff is Bluff, Diplomacy is Diplomacy, Intimidate is Intimidate. Two skills got their names changed: Gather Information to Streetwise and Sense Motive to Insight. That's it.

Second point: the OP was asking for things you dislike about the system's mechanics, not stuff you love.

- Saph

bosssmiley
2009-06-15, 07:34 AM
3E: falls apart really fast under the weight of its own complexity and disjointedness.

4E: fails at stated design intent because the designers did not do the maths.

The DM has to hack-into-usability games which do not have the excuse of being created ex nihilo as was OD&D/Chainmail. This should not be the case. There are now decades of research available into what works as an RPG game system. There is also easy access to the single greatest fault-finding hivemind in human history (clue: you're using it). There is no excuse for pushing fail on the punter. :smallmad:

Kurald Galain
2009-06-15, 07:50 AM
Okay... probably most of this has been said already, but...

Issues with 3E:
• Certain rules are messy and unnecessarily convoluted, in particular grappling.
• The epic level rules simply don't work, period.
• Gameplay gets slow for certain classes at high level, in particular for casters who have so many memorized spells they could pick from each turn, and for summoners who have a whole zoo to control.
• Balance is problematic at higher levels. There are certain uber builds that you can hit upon without even noticing.
• Certain classes have a lack of options. For instance, the fighter cannot really do anything outside of combat.
• Certain actions that should be possible for regular adventurers are infeasible unless they have certain unusual feats.
• The difference between attributes becomes blurry in later sourcebooks, since it is too easy to swap them (e.g. using int to attack instead of strength). This reduces character variety.
• Characters must have lots 'n lots of magical items to be competitive.
• Psionics is way too similar to magic. Too many psi powers are just copy/pasted from spells.
• The skill system is too random. It is not possible to set a DC to make a task challenging to a novice but easy to an expert.
• Using different classes for PCs and for NPCs is a kludge (apparently created to compensate for a mistake in the skill point rules).
• There are too many classes. Several newer classes not meaningfully different from older ones, the most obvious one being the Samurai.
• Many prestige classes have difficult prerequisites for no reason. This means that you pretty much need to plan your build ahead from level one.
• Multiclass rules are flawed, making certain combos extremely ineffective. On the other hand, certain classes have so little to offer at higher levels that they almost force you to multiclass out, or prestige class out.
• Too large spell lists. Classes like beguiler are good, but classes like wizard have way too many books to read to gather spells from.
• Material components require too much bookkeeping for no real reason. I've never met a DM who didn't ignore them, though (except when they get really expensive).

Issues with 4E:
• Certain rules are messy and unnecessarily convoluted, in particular the 3D rules.
• The skill challenge rules simply don't work, period.
• For that matter, the ritual rules simply don't work, either.
• Gameplay gets slow for all classes at moderate levels, since they have so many powers and items they could pick from each turn.
• Balance is somewhat problematic at higher levels. There are a few uber builds that you can hit upon without even noticing.
• Certain actions that should be possible for regular adventures are not allowed unless they have certain unusual powers. Related to this is that by default, original ideas are less effective than using a standard power.
• Certain classes have a lack of options. For instance, the fighter cannot really do anything outside of combat.
• The difference between the six attributes is almost meaningless; practically every class has an "attack stat", one or two "secondary stats" and the rest are irrelevant.
• Characters must have lots 'n lots of magical items to be competitive.
• Psionics is way too similar to magic, and also to the other power sources. The difference between power sources is mostly irrelevant.
• The skill system is too random; this is exacarbated by the lack of skill points. It is not feasible for any character to become an actual expert in anything as compared to other characters of the same level.
• Using different rules for PCs and for NPCs is a kludge.
• There are (starting to be) too many classes. Several newer classes are based solely on a gimmick, just for the sake of having that gimmick, and are otherwise not meaningfully different from older ones.
• Lack of variety. Many options aren't meaningfully different, and several classic options that would be different are forbidden for the sake of balance. This means that you can't really make a tradeoff between power and versatility.
• Lack of real choice: too many powers and feats are either obvious must-haves (hello, enlarge spell) or obvious duds (careful strike, anyone?). Essentially, each class is narrow with only a few viable or meaningful builds, and many items in the AV book go unused simply because there are better ones.
• There are many little bonuses and penalties to keep track of, many of which are irrelevant most of the time.
• It is too easy to ignore common problems, like food, light, and disease. On the other hand, it is nigh impossible, even at epic levels, to affect anything more than a few dozen yards away from you.
• There are a few obvious errors or omissions in the rules that could easily be cleared up, but the rules team is unresponsive.

J.Gellert
2009-06-15, 07:54 AM
Hm, very easy and short for me.

4th: Everything is the same, with different names (Fighter: "I cast... er, I mean, I 'use'?").

3rd: 'Vancian' magic ("Quickly! Blow him up like you did that ogre..." "Sorry, that was yesterday, today I am feeling... different.").

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-15, 10:22 AM
3rd edition

- "You need a feat for it" syndrome
- Epic level needed rework
- I like magic as it is, but a lot of spells should be nerfed, or at least should be modified in something (like drawbacks and casting time)
- some mechanics need a rework, starting from talent trees
-skill point and skill selection are fine, but some classes needed them in different way
-multiclassing is or too good or too bad (ideas from ToB could be a good start)
- imbalances between classes (even if in a less extent than a lot people say, in my experience).


4th edition

didn't fixed nothing of above, only changed the game with a "we go around it" design.