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SamTheCleric
2008-02-28, 01:51 PM
http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/node/35776


Hola all. Massawyrm here.

I’ve waited a long time to write this review. And let it be known now that what you’re about to read isn’t from someone who has gotten a hold of a bootleg playtest copy and gave it a quick once over. No. This is a long time coming. I’ve been playtesting 4th edition since late October. Long under an NDA, my excitement for this new edition has been bubbling over into something of a churning froth for the better part of four months now. Every Saturday of those four months (holidays be damned) our group (comprised of three married couples and a single friend) has gotten together to nosh some potato chips, guzzle some coffee and roll some god damned dice. One of our members, a freelancer for WotC, needed to learn the rules for an upcoming 4E book he got hired to work on. But as he apparently learns the rules better playing than he does running, he turned to me over a cup of coffee, narrowed his eyes and told me point blank that I was about to jump in head first. That’s right. Dungeon Massawyrm. There. Now the joke is out of everyone’s system.

Let me just say this upfront. I. Love. 4E. And I didn’t want to. Much like many of you out there, the 3.5 partial reboot just five years ago pissed me off. But we’ve spent 8 years now with the better part of this system. And hell, even 5 years is a long time. But Massawyrm, you’re thinking you don’t know how much I’ve spent on 3.5. No? Here at the Casa de la Wyrm we don’t have a D&D bookshelf. We have a D&D closet. It’s where I keep my boxes of Dwarven Forge Master Maze, my big plastic bins of D&D Minis, and two long shelves of over $1000 in 3.5 books. But just 2 weeks into playing 4E, I boxed up every non-fluff heavy book I owned, drove down to Half Price Books and sold them for as much cash as I could get. I knew I would never, ever, touch them again. Yes. 4E really is that good. It is the XBOX 360 to your XBOX. And it is time to upgrade my friends.

One other thing to note is that the playtest DID NOT INCLUDE the use of the DI (Digital Initiative.) There have been a lot of rumors that you need this new online service to play. These rumors are horse****. We have played for four months with only a Players Handbook, a Dungeon Masters Guide and a Monster Manual. And Nothing else. 4E does not require a computer. Although if everything I hear about it is true, I just might want to keep my laptop with me once it is up and running.

What’s about to follow is a three part story. But it’s not about the details. What they changed here or what isn’t there. After this weekend every gaming forum out there will be flooded with details. This is going to be about the experience. What it is like playing Dungeons & Dragons 4E. This isn’t an article meant just for you junkies who, like myself, can quote the 3.5 rules - chapter and verse. It’s also for those of you who haven’t played in 15 years and secretly, though you might never admit it, wish you could go back and play it again. Or for those out there who haven’t played, but always wanted to. This June, 4th Edition will be unleashed upon the world and it is the perfect time to pick up the hobby or give it a second shot.

Every decade or so Dungeons & Dragons gets a make over. Not just a facelift, but a complete rebooting of the system. What I’ve always loved about these reboots is that each time the designers make sure to integrate, rather than move away from, the innovations of the previous decade. When 2E came out in ’89, it took all of the math, the charts and the diversity that had emerged in gaming throughout the 80’s and created one of the most complicated systems to date. When 3E hit the shelves in 2000, it took the revolution of the Vampire White Wolf Storyteller system - the notion of complete character individuality and modular options – and gave it a strong, but much more complicated system to work with. Now, with the revolutions in online gaming, Dungeons & Dragons once again finds itself evolving. From Everquest to the World of Warcraft (and the many other imitators in between and after) comes the notion of perfect balance – the idea that every class, every character, every role in the party, has something to do and never, ever, has to sit on the sidelines.

That is the single most important change to this system. I don’t care what you’re playing, whether the party’s wizard, its cleric, the fighter or its rogue, you will always have the option of doing something useful. You will never be forced (as long as you’re conscious) to simply sit and watch everyone else play because you’ve run out of spells or don’t have a high enough Spell Penetration or lack a weapon property to get through DR. Those days are done. Clerics don’t just hide behind the fighter waiting to stand them up any more. And you can actually successfully run a party without one now. Oh, and the retarded notion of having to rest for the day because the wizard blew through his spells too quickly (even when the rest of the party is full up)? Over and done with. In redesigning the way the character classes work, they’ve managed to eradicate most of the stupid tropes that we ’ve all just kind of sighed at and tried to ignore in the context of role playing.

Now, there’s a notion floating around out there that since the goal of 4E was to make the rules simple it means that they’re making them stupid – as to be easier for younger or dumber players to understand. The problem with that, aside from the fact that its probably one of the more arrogant stances out there, is that it belies a complete misunderstand of what 4E is all about. Is it simpler thatn 3.x? Oh hell yes. But it is elegantly simple. Intuitive. It’s like complaining that switching from DOS to Windows was stupid because now anyone could use a computer. When really all it meant was that now you didn’t have to type all that code. Your computer wasn’t dumbed down any. Neither is D&D. It still has all the complication that was in 3.5 – lots of character options, a focus on role playing and tactical combats that are even far more elaborate than before (more on that later.) But all the rules work just like every other rule does. They all make sense.
You pretty much know how a rule works before you look it up because it works just like the rule for this other situation.

The problem with Dungeons & Dragons has always been that everything is a special case. Every spell interacts with the universe differently and has to encounter a thousand different monsters. The soul of 4E is that now all those rules spin in the same direction (if you will) rather than flying off in a hundred different ones. At first glance there are a couple rule changes that will seem silly. The one that crawled up my craw the first session was the fact that diagonal movement counts as just one square. The idea that you could move faster diagonally than you could straight or side to side is retarded. But by the second session I didn’t care. Why? No one EVER had to recount a movement. You could eyeball distances without surprises popping up because you forgot to double count the second diagonal.
Everyone moves and counts and there’s never a hint of second guessing. And when it came down to it, any optimization a player could get out of it was balanced by the monsters having the same thing. Life is just easier this way.

EVERY RULE CHANGE IS LIKE THIS. It all just works. Fluid, intuitive and fun.
And man is it fun. The new tactics are incredible. Anyone who thinks simple rules mean simple combats is in for a shock. Every class has a slate of weird abilities and powers that set them apart from every other class – and when a party learns each other’s tactics and begins to work in concert, watch the **** out. Because things get crazy. Tomorrow’s piece will be about what it’s like to exist as a DM in this new tactical environment, because a DM really has to be on his toes. Simple minded DMs are going to get walked all over by a competent group of players.

The new combat system is glorious. There are so many options, so many opportunities to do really fun and incredible things, that the game becomes more about what you want to do in the moment rather than just sitting around waiting for your turn to come up. Combats still take about as long as they did before, you just get to do more during them. While iterative attacks are gone, it never feels like they’re missing. The Fighter is still a sword whirling death machine that gets a lot of chances to drop beasts. Rather than hour and a half 3 round combats, you end up with 10-20 round epic combats that allow everyone to do a variety of things. It no longer seems like a waste of a turn to move, it’ll get back to you momentarily. Sometimes moving two or three rounds in a row really pays off. You no longer have to worry about missing out on any action just because you want to get into position. Which leads to crazier maneuvers and more fun at the table.

And the rule simplicity allows players to really attempt craziness without fear of bizarre rules. My wife, who has played 3.5 with us for years, never felt comfortable with it. She was always concerned that she didn’t know the rules as well as everyone else. While she enjoyed the game (and having friends over to play once a week) she isn’t the type to sit down with the rulebooks and memorize them. She’s geeky enough to live with and love me, but she draws the line in the dirt there. 4E on the other hand has made her a different woman. She’s confident. She loves her character and the rules and tries out all sorts of strange things. She no longer looks at me and asks “Is this right?” Instead, she plows forward, kicking ass and suggesting tactics to the more senior members of the party (like the game designer.) And she asks me repeatedly about whether or not I’ve planned next weeks game. She looks forward to it.

And amid the rule changes comes the racial and class changes. While there’s been much ado about these concepts, the new focus of the game places a lot on the role playing and direct play aspect of race and class. There is a difference between a 6th level Eladrin ranger and an Elf ranger. One gets to reroll one attack every combat and ignore difficult terrain while shifting (making a 5 foot adjust) and the other can teleport 5 squares once a combat.
Let me tell you, there’s a big difference. Dwarves are more than just short guys with low Move rates and a +2 to CON. They make great fighters for a reason, not just because the fluff says so. But at the same time there aren’
t any disadvantages to playing against type. No one will roll their eyes at a Dwarf Rogue or (once they’re out) Half Orc Sorcerers. There are benefits to playing WITH type, but never penalties for against. And that makes a WORLD of difference. Race in 3.X was all about what it did for you at 1st level and what it did to your stats. After that, it rarely mattered. Now it’
s also about what it does for you at 6th or 17th or whatever.

As has been written about, there are three stages of play now. Heroic (lvls 1-10), Paragon (lvls 11-20) and Epic (21-30.) Each stage really is its own beast. Heroic is just that. It’s what most would think of as lvls 1-6 in 3.x. Flight doesn’t exist for the players yet and neither do prestige classes (now called Paragon Paths.) You’re tough but not ungodly so. Paragon really is the middle range where you get to do all sorts of crazy stuff without ever getting too silly. It’s also where you really get to step away from your class and become something new and different. And Epic is just plain silly. I honestly see a lot of folks stopping at paragon – but for those that want to get into truly EPIC level, mythologically powerful gaming, epic will do the trick. With class abilities that begin with phrases like Once per day, when you die… it allows for a whole, bizarre new type of play that actually manages to maintain its consistency. But more about all this in later.

Is there anything I don’t like? Not in the rules. It’s all nitpicky stuff about what gets released when. I miss my Half-Orcs, my sorcerers and kinda wish Druids were around for the initial release. Then there’re a few complaints about the monsters that aren’t out versus those that are (but more of that on day 3.) The rules? They’re damned near perfect. I have zero complaints. I’m pretty confident most folks will feel the same way once they dive in.

4E completely reinvigorated our group. It’s weird, but in creating a new edition, they found the magic that made Dungeons & Dragons what it always was. They’ve taken shovels and dug out the core of what makes the game tick and built a system that focuses on THAT. This feels like 1st edition all over again. It has everyone excited. No one skips or misses games. And when we have to cancel, it becomes a big production of attempting to reschedule before canceling. Seven people in our group and every one of us, no matter how resistant, no matter how angry about a new edition we might have been, have discovered a brand new passion for the game. There’s a lot of negativity out there right now, a lot of anger over this rule change or that rule change or the thought of all those now nigh useless books. But come June that’s going to change. People are going to see first hand how those changes work together to make a superior experience. The game is more fun and less work. And I, for one, am never going back. I am a 4E player. And I can’t wait until you guys are too.

Check in tomorrow for part 2, detailing what it’s like to run a 4E game (the new challenges and pleasures), and Saturday for part 3 going into the Monsters.

Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

Massawyrm

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-28, 01:59 PM
Spiffy! Cool review. I'm still not sold though...very close.. but some of what I have seen today is moving me away from wanting to play...

Artanis
2008-02-28, 02:02 PM
Very, very awesome. Many thanks, Sam, and I look forward to the next couple of installments he mentioned :smallbiggrin:

SamTheCleric
2008-02-28, 02:03 PM
Depending on how the other articles are... I may go from "I'm sticking to 3.5" to "I'll DM. When are you free?"

Belial_the_Leveler
2008-02-28, 02:08 PM
Strange, isn't it? It says, repeatedly, how cool and awesome 4th edition really is. It repeats everything said by WotC so far. But it doesn't say anything new at all.

I am sceptical because so far we haven't seen ANY negative points in ANY review. Not even one. Statistically speaking, even with a very good product there will be mistakes, problems and complains from reviewers. They might be minor-but they will be there. But so far, not even a single such point has been raised in any review at all.

Reinboom
2008-02-28, 02:09 PM
Aye... this sounds good, but also sounds filtered.
I will say this article moves me 0 points in either direction of "hate" or "love".

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-28, 02:10 PM
Ok, rereading the whole thing one more time I have gone from leaning towards to on the fence about it to "anyone wanna buy some 3.5 books? I'm goin 4e baybee!"

Artanis
2008-02-28, 02:10 PM
Strange, isn't it? It says, repeatedly, how cool and awesome 4th edition really is. It repeats everything said by WotC so far. But it doesn't say anything new at all.

I am sceptical because so far we haven't seen ANY negative points in ANY review. Not even one. Statistically speaking, even with a very good product there will be mistakes, problems and complains from reviewers. They might be minor-but they will be there. But so far, not even a single such point has been raised in any review at all.
It says plenty new...it gives in-depth descriptions of how good the actual, real-life gameplay is. We already have tons of crunch, and more will be coming out. Hell, crunch is being released as we speak. Type. Whatever.

All WotC has told us about the gameplay is "it's awesome", but never really why it's awesome...not in any depth, at any rate. This guy goes into exactly what makes it so much fun for him.

Zincorium
2008-02-28, 02:12 PM
Strange, isn't it? It says, repeatedly, how cool and awesome 4th edition really is. It repeats everything said by WotC so far. But it doesn't say anything new at all.

I am sceptical because so far we haven't seen ANY negative points in ANY review. Not even one. Statistically speaking, even with a very good product there will be mistakes, problems and complains from reviewers. They might be minor-but they will be there. But so far, not even a single such point has been raised in any review at all.

Well, really that makes perfect sense. You're right, with a full statistical spectrum of all people who will play fourth edition, we should see some negative points.

But, at this point, the only people who are actually bothering to write up long reviews of fourth edition are the people who feel really strongly about it. So you have an overwhelmingly positive section of reviews and those who hate it and don't want to have anything to do with it. The latter are less likely, I feel, to do much research because they don't care to know.

Anyone undecided is probably going to wait for some actual experience before making any judgement.

So given the obvious skewing of who's posted reviews that you've seen, it does make sense.

KIDS
2008-02-28, 02:16 PM
That is a very nice review, and very peacefully written which I applaud.
With reading last D&D Experience day reports and stuff I'm glad for ordering the books a few days ago, have settled on the firmly optimist side and can't wait for it. Cheers!

SamTheCleric
2008-02-28, 02:17 PM
Yeah, I just called my local store and told him I wanted to pre-order them.

He laughed.

But he gave me 15% off :smallbiggrin:

Hopeless
2008-02-28, 02:23 PM
Interesting, the next few days may well prove very interesting indeed.

Morty
2008-02-28, 02:26 PM
Hm. This review seems too enthusiastic for me to take it seriously. The author just repeats how great, cool and better than 3ed 4ed is. I'll wait until we see some more rewievs, as articles written after first try always are either overly positive or negative.

Rutee
2008-02-28, 02:27 PM
Thank you, Sony and others, for totally screwing up advance previews over the internet for everyone else.

tresson
2008-02-28, 02:28 PM
He did point out that he's been playing it for 4 months as a play tester so it's not a first try review.

Artanis
2008-02-28, 02:28 PM
Am I the only one who noticed his attempts to explain what is so much better and why, regardless of how convincing said attempts were? Because it certain seems that way.

Rutee
2008-02-28, 02:31 PM
Am I the only one who noticed his attempts to explain what is so much better and why, regardless of how convincing said attempts were? Because it certain seems that way.

I caught it. I'm just saying, Sony and Microsoft trying to abuse the internet for their marketting has made it easy to justify ignoring a positive review.

Artanis
2008-02-28, 02:32 PM
I was mostly referring to M0rt and Belial_the_Leveler :smallwink:

Frosty
2008-02-28, 02:32 PM
I'll probably stick with 3.5 until my current campaign has ended, which could run for another year or more. I've spent way too much $$ in 3.5 to abandon it so quickly :smallsigh:

Morty
2008-02-28, 02:36 PM
I was mostly referring to M0rt and Belial_the_Leveler :smallwink:

Well, I did notice that this reviev isn't "it's cool because it's cool" and the author actually tries to justify his opinion. However, I've seen enough of 100% positive reviews of things that didn't turn out so well. Besides, he lauds few things I consider deicdedly non-laudable.

Lord Iames Osari
2008-02-28, 02:37 PM
Am I the only one who noticed his attempts to explain what is so much better and why, regardless of how convincing said attempts were? Because it certain seems that way.
No, I noticed it.

Human Paragon 3
2008-02-28, 02:38 PM
Great review, but the talkback on AICN is BRUTAL! Lord... I'd expect better from fellow geeks.

Rutee
2008-02-28, 02:38 PM
I was mostly referring to M0rt and Belial_the_Leveler :smallwink:

Yeah, but they're somewhat justified in ignoring a mostly positive review on the internet as being from someone paid by WotC, trying to build up 4e positive sentiment. Even if it is adding some measure of new material.

Moff Chumley
2008-02-28, 02:39 PM
Keep in mind, though: unless we're getting completely BS'd, he was just as skeptical as plenty of posters here until he played the game (which no one here has, I might add), at which point he loved it. Maybe, just maybe, it is a terrific game!

(BTW, the comments on the site itself were ridiculous.)

Reinboom
2008-02-28, 02:40 PM
I have to give the author a benefit for trying.
There is yet a lot of things that s/he definitely would not be able to talk about yet... so... I guess it's force-filtered.... maybe....

Rereading it over, I'll change my emphasis from this article to a +0.2 move (in favor of 4e). I don't like filtered articles, though.

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-28, 02:41 PM
Great review, but the talkback on AICN is BRUTAL! Lord... I'd expect better from fellow geeks.

Hi.. welcome to the Internet. NOW SHUT UP BECAUSE I'M RIGHT AND YOU'RE WRONG!!

:smallbiggrin:

Rutee
2008-02-28, 02:41 PM
Great review, but the talkback on AICN is BRUTAL! Lord... I'd expect better from fellow geeks.

Welcome to the Internet.

Morty
2008-02-28, 02:41 PM
Mostly positive review

It's not "mostly positive" review, it's praising chant on how godly awesome 4ed is. Which is why I remain a bit skeptical.

Artanis
2008-02-28, 02:43 PM
Yeah, but they're somewhat justified in ignoring a mostly positive review on the internet as being from someone paid by WotC, trying to build up 4e positive sentiment. Even if it is adding some measure of new material.
Oh, I agree that skepticism in and of itself is fully justified. However, basing said skepticism on completely ignoring major parts of the article -which it appeared they were doing (though M0rt's elaboration a couple posts up certainly clears him of this charge) - is not justified, and I was calling them on it.

ShadowSiege
2008-02-28, 02:43 PM
I'll probably stick with 3.5 until my current campaign has ended, which could run for another year or more. I've spent way too much $$ in 3.5 to abandon it so quickly :smallsigh:

Understandable. I'll be taking the time between the release of 4e and the end of my current campaign to familiarize myself with the 4e rule set.

I'm interested in reading the rest of the reviews he posts.

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-28, 02:43 PM
It's not "mostly positive" review, it's praising chant on how godly awesome 4ed is. Which is why I remain a bit skeptical.

I'm still a bit with you M0rt. I dunno, I wax and wane between dread and excitement. I think part of me cannot accept the possibility that 4e can be THIS good.

Time will tell.

Moff Chumley
2008-02-28, 02:44 PM
Yeah, but they're somewhat justified in ignoring a mostly positive review on the internet as being from someone paid by WotC, trying to build up 4e positive sentiment. Even if it is adding some measure of new material.

Wait a sec, is he being paid by WotC? I thought a friend had asked him to help learn the game. :confused:
There's a difference.

Rutee
2008-02-28, 02:46 PM
Wait a sec, is he being paid by WotC? I thought a friend had asked him to help learn the game. :confused:
There's a difference.

Probably not. But Sony has attempted viral marketting by having marketeers pose as teenage players, offhand. Then there's the rather infamous case of Microsoft offering money to check their Wikipedia page for inaccuracies..

I doubt ti's the case, but it'd be easy to go "It /might/ be, so I shouldn't pay attention."

Morty
2008-02-28, 02:47 PM
I'm still a bit with you M0rt. I dunno, I wax and wane between dread and excitement. I think part of me cannot accept the possibility that 4e can be THIS good.

Time will tell.

Preety much my thoughts. This review reminds me uncomfortably of Oblivion- it had whole gaming magazines chanting praises towards it and it turned out... well, less than perfect. I just hope it won't be the case with 4ed D&D, and I'll wait until I see some more cool-headed review, either positive or negative. This one seems like someone got carried away by enthusiasm.
Also, I bet good money that soon enough we'll se reviews that scold and belittle every single aspect of 4ed.

Puggins
2008-02-28, 02:52 PM
Probably not. But Sony has attempted viral marketting by having marketeers pose as teenage players, offhand. Then there's the rather infamous case of Microsoft offering money to check their Wikipedia page for inaccuracies..

I doubt ti's the case, but it'd be easy to go "It /might/ be, so I shouldn't pay attention."

Umm, not to sound trite or anything, but this is from Ain't It Cool News, which is about the most anti-corporate movie review site that is in existence. The guy giving the review, Massawyrm, is one of the most trusted reviewers on that site, behind Harry Knowles, Moriarty, Capone and maybe one or two others. He ain't no shill.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-02-28, 02:56 PM
That's good, but remember money does a number on people. Just look at the 20 bajillion musical groups who did REAL sellouts (not the fake sellouts some bands are accused of by fans).

Indon
2008-02-28, 03:03 PM
Hm. This review seems too enthusiastic for me to take it seriously.

Personally, I think it's too short on information.

Things I learned from this article:

-The game is like WoW... but in a good way. Really!
-The author doesn't like epic play, considering it over the top.

Important things I learned from the article:

-Combat is significantly faster - thus it's probably less simulationist in rule structure. The same philosophy that was applied to classes (make them all mechanically the same) seems applied to the rules of the game itself to streamline them.
-Per-day abilities (and possibly other artifacts of the Old D&D) may be restricted to epic play. (Edit: From reviewing other sources, this doesn't seem to be true. That's good)

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-28, 03:16 PM
Umm, not to sound trite or anything, but this is from Ain't It Cool News, which is about the most anti-corporate movie review site that is in existence. The guy giving the review, Massawyrm, is one of the most trusted reviewers on that site, behind Harry Knowles, Moriarty, Capone and maybe one or two others. He ain't no shill.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not in the "he's a shill" camp; I know AICN and trust them. HOWEVER....

I am having a hard time allowing myself to hope that this is awesome and as ful of win as indicated.

It's like...

Imagine your D&D party has been wandering through troll/drow/illithid infested Underdark for months, lost, running low on food, going a bit batty. Suddenly the DM rolls a few dice and smiles broadly.. "You see ahead of you a shimmering curtain of light, beyond which you see a sunlit meadow, filled with frolicking elves, dryads, nymphs and other cute woodland creatures. What do you do?"

SamTheCleric
2008-02-28, 03:18 PM
Attack the bunny and cleave onto the nymph.

Draz74
2008-02-28, 03:18 PM
If we keep seeing all-positive reviews in the next few days, I will be suspicious. Or awed. But the reason all reviews before this week have been such suspicious pure optimism is because WotC only gave people partial permission to loosen their NDA's and review 4e at all if they were going to say only positive things.

Edit: How much will you be selling those 3e books for, Mr. Friendly? :smallsmile:

Titanium Dragon
2008-02-28, 03:29 PM
I am sceptical because so far we haven't seen ANY negative points in ANY review. Not even one. Statistically speaking, even with a very good product there will be mistakes, problems and complains from reviewers. They might be minor-but they will be there. But so far, not even a single such point has been raised in any review at all.

Well, most likely the flaws in the system either A) are non-obvious or B) are small. It is possible, for instance, that the reviewers simply lack the hardcore min/maxers who really try a system. It is also possible it is a much harder system to break, ALA Alternity - there are ways to make systems less breakable.

3.X looked really awesome when you first looked at it, but it got a lot worse after a while of playing with it - you realized just how poorly various classes, spells, and abilities line up with one another only after some playtime. Yes, you can see some of them on paper, but in actual practice you see the gaps much more clearly. But lots of people simply don't see the flaws in 3.X, not because it isn't a horribly flawed system (because it is) but because they aren't very good at "playing the game", so to speak (or really just don't understand that there's a huge power gap between the wizard and fighter).

I suspect the reviewers probably fall into this category. They aren't people who try to break systems, nor are they people who really grasp the power gap issues in 3.X, much less fully comprehend the source of said power gaps.

Some of what was said in this review was stuff we already knew, and a lot of it was confirmation of the obvious. What we haven't seen is the crunch, which is ultimately what will make or break the system. That said, 4th edition, ever since I heard about them using some of the ideas from the Tome of Battle, I knew it was going to be massively better than 3.X because the way the ToB does things is far better than the way 3.X does them.


Great review, but the talkback on AICN is BRUTAL! Lord... I'd expect better from fellow geeks.

I wouldn't. Geeks are a horrible audience. I have two screenshots illustrating this: one, the "after planeswalkers were officially announced" screenshot of the WotC forums, where in at least one forum EVERY SINGLE POST on the first page was about planeswalkers. The other was immediately after 4E was announced, with the "doomsday thread" being four times as long as the "its going to rock" thread.

This indicates that geeks are really, really big whiners. And it is true. You see it everywhere. All the "Third edition is teh roxxor!", ignoring the obvious and demonstrated flaws, and the "fourth edition will suck", despite there being no evidence whatsoever that it will. Heck, after it was announced people said it would suck, when they knew absolutely nothing whatsoever about it.

They'll end up playing 4th edition, most likely, and it will be better than 3.X was, much as 3.X was better than second edition. The whining will continue, though, because some people simply are inherently whiners and the internet gives them a forum. They like to hear themselves talk so they'll make tons of negative posts, but in the end, it just won't matter.

I think anyone who is like "I'm going to buy 4th edition after this review", though, is incredibly gullible. They didn't tell us anything new, other than "this is awesome" (which many people have already been saying). There's not a whole lot to support the "this is awesome" assertion in the article. It is a lot of fluff, but not a lot of crunch. And by that, I mean there's lots of stuff he says, but very little material underneath it.

DeathQuaker
2008-02-28, 03:30 PM
I'd like to see part 2 of his review where he might get a little more into gameplay. He does provide some useful info, but there's also just a lot of gushing.

I also have to weigh his playtesting experience against some playtesters I know, who have said, "I can't say specifically why because of the NDA, but basically: I'm not buying this game when it comes out."

But that's as much difference in interests and playstyles as anything else. Ultimately, this review means I'll have to wait for more detailed and specific reviews to come out, closer to the game's release.

One (TINY) thing that bugs me is his mentioning a couple things about, "These'll be cool when these come out...." (e.g., half-orcs and druids).

I wonder if it means WotC's spreading out MORE races and classes through different books than before.... and how that will contribute to the "power creep" we see in 3.5. Playing a core game is relatively balanced; start adding supplements and you start getting serious power creep... how will they handle this in 4e?

Indon
2008-02-28, 03:34 PM
Well, most likely the flaws in the system either A) are non-obvious or B) are small. It is possible, for instance, that the reviewers simply lack the hardcore min/maxers who really try a system. It is also possible it is a much harder system to break, ALA Alternity - there are ways to make systems less breakable.

Personally, I doubt 4'th edition core will be 'breakable' at all. It's pretty easy to do - just only have a small subset of tactical abilities to give to the classes as powers, reduce tactical synergy between options, and reduce player options to being equal or less potent than class powers (and maybe reduce their possible synergy too), and you'll have an easily balancable, impossible to break system with ease. (Edit: And everything we've heard about 4'th edition so far implies that this is exactly what they're intending to do - limit the game in order to make balance not only viable, but easy)

This system is, however, not neccessarily a good system with which to play a tabletop RPG (unless you directly equate game balance to quality of system. In which case you're golden).

Jerthanis
2008-02-28, 03:35 PM
The review is a little bit vague on specifics, and I'm not sure I agree with some of his apparent problems with 3rd edition. Also, much of his evidence as to why it's so much better is strictly anecdotal. "My wife likes it, and she was never comfortable with 3.5 rules for them being too cumbersome." Is just a testament to the personal tastes of his wife. This is really the extent of his review, "It's worked really well for us, and we all didn't like the idea of a new edition beforehand, and that makes it proof!" But anecdotal evidence is never sufficient.

My mind is really turning over to try and understand what he's talking about when he mentions that you're rewarded for playing with type, to be Dwarven Fighters and Halfling Rogues and so on... but that you aren't penalized for playing against type either. If a Dwarf gets X ability at Y level, and it's useful for Fighters, but not for Wizards, then it stands to reason that a Wizard is penalized for choosing to be a Dwarf because he gets a worthless ability instead of a worthwhile one. This may be picking nits, and I could be reading far too much into that, but it seems like he's basically saying, "Dwarves are best suited to being fighters, but they aren't any worse if they are something else." Which seems to be a paradox.

Still, I like Star Wars: Saga edition so far, and from everything I've heard, Saga is pretty much based on 3.95 edition D&D as anything.

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-28, 03:40 PM
My mind is really turning over to try and understand what he's talking about when he mentions that you're rewarded for playing with type, to be Dwarven Fighters and Halfling Rogues and so on... but that you aren't penalized for playing against type either. If a Dwarf gets X ability at Y level, and it's useful for Fighters, but not for Wizards, then it stands to reason that a Wizard is penalized for choosing to be a Dwarf because he gets a worthless ability instead of a worthwhile one. This may be picking nits, and I could be reading far too much into that, but it seems like he's basically saying, "Dwarves are best suited to being fighters, but they aren't any worse if they are something else." Which seems to be a paradox.

It really isn't a paradox. The Wizard doesn't get a penalty for being a Dwarf, he just doesn't get the bonus he would get if he were, say, an eladrin.

Not getting a bonus != penalty

A penalty would be, say, not being allowed to cast certain spells or something.

Speaking of which, I thought Drow were supposed to be in the PHB?

Moff Chumley
2008-02-28, 03:41 PM
I think its more likely that abuse just hasn't become immediately obvious to him and his friends.

Indon
2008-02-28, 03:43 PM
Not getting a bonus != penalty

A penalty would be, say, not being allowed to cast certain spells or something.

A penalty could be -1 damage to certain spells, just as a bonus could be +1 damage to certain spells. Mechanically, they aren't quite identical - because by having both bonuses and penalties then the effective penalty is not 1 point of damage but 2, thus effectively doubling the effective penalty.

So mechanically, removing penalties just makes race less significant.

But other than that, the difference is psychological - now people won't think there's a penalty.

The_Snark
2008-02-28, 03:43 PM
It really isn't a paradox. The Wizard doesn't get a penalty for being a Dwarf, he just doesn't get the bonus he would get if he were, say, an eladrin.

Not getting a bonus != penalty

A penalty would be, say, not being allowed to cast certain spells or something.

Speaking of which, I thought Drow were supposed to be in the PHB?

It sort of is. If the player would get bonuses for playing an eladrin or human wizard but gets no useful bonus for playing a dwarven wizard, then the player is in a way being penalized for choice of race.

Now, I can also see what the review is saying—take the example of a dwarven sorcerer in 3.5. The player is actively penalized for choosing a dwarf by losing points in the sorceror's most important attribute.

From what I gather, that actual penalty will be eliminated in 4e, but the effective penalty for not playing a more specialized race will remain.

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-28, 03:46 PM
A penalty could be -1 damage to certain spells, just as a bonus could be +1 damage to certain spells. Mechanically, they aren't quite identical - because by having both bonuses and penalties then the effective penalty is not 1 point of damage but 2, thus effectively doubling the effective penalty.

So mechanically, removing penalties just makes race less significant.

But other than that, the difference is psychological - now people won't think there's a penalty.

Right. And I do know where you are coming from. Mechanically, yeah it may well be the same. The real difference though is how the player takes it....

Also, the "bonus" we are talking is, IMO going to be minor at best, i.e. some races have better stats for certain classes.

Artanis
2008-02-28, 03:49 PM
A penalty could be -1 damage to certain spells, just as a bonus could be +1 damage to certain spells. Mechanically, they aren't quite identical - because by having both bonuses and penalties then the effective penalty is not 1 point of damage but 2, thus effectively doubling the effective penalty.

So mechanically, removing penalties just makes race less significant.

But other than that, the difference is psychological - now people won't think there's a penalty.
Removing penalties may make race seem less significant in regards to the stats, but they're adding a LOT more besides to help differentiate the races. In 3e, the difference between a Human and an Elf was 2 CON, 2 DEX, and getting some crappy racials vs. getting a free feat. In 4e, I have no idea what most of the stat bonuses would be (Elves are +2 Dex and +2 Wis IIRC, but don't quote me on that :smallwink: ), but each race gets racial feats and abilities that far outstrip any differences that were in 3e. If, say Dwarves get an ungodly number of racial feats that make them harder to kill while Elves get an ungodly number of racial feats that make them dexterous hippies, then that would be a MUCH bigger difference than just a few points of CON.

Morty
2008-02-28, 03:50 PM
Really, the lack of racial penalties is more of a flavor and style thing. Some people -like me for example- feel that race should mean more than just "what awesome stuff will I get".

Rutee
2008-02-28, 03:52 PM
What else is it going to be on a mechanical level?

Tweekinator
2008-02-28, 03:56 PM
What else is it going to be on a mechanical level?

What awesome stuff do I get and/or lose?

Rutee
2008-02-28, 03:58 PM
DnD hasn't handled penalties well. It's generally a meaningless stat penalty that really only restricts viable options, or a crippling weakness that makes the race a less-then-viable PC.

If they can't figure out the middle ground, I'll be quite happy with just killing the meaningless penalties.

Morty
2008-02-28, 04:02 PM
DnD hasn't handled penalties well. It's generally a meaningless stat penalty that really only restricts viable options, or a crippling weakness that makes the race a less-then-viable PC.

I don't see anything wrong in certain race/class combinations being less than optimized. In fact, it helps to add variety and belivability.

Artanis
2008-02-28, 04:03 PM
I don't see anything wrong in certain race/class combinations being less than optimized. In fact, it helps to add variety and belivability.
I wholeheartedly agree that races being better at some classes than others is a good (or at least non-bad) thing, but there's a big difference between "less than optimized" and "crippled".

Indon
2008-02-28, 04:05 PM
I wholeheartedly agree that races being better at some classes than others is a good (or at least non-bad) thing, but there's a big difference between "less than optimized" and "crippled".

Degree. (of the self-imposed handicap)

Edit: In narrative terms, a lack of racial penalties means that there's nothing special about your Half-Orc Wizard - he's just another wizard, not an individual struggling against his racial identity.

Rutee
2008-02-28, 04:07 PM
I don't see anything wrong in certain race/class combinations being less than optimized. In fact, it helps to add variety and belivability.

Not Optimized is genuinely different from Penalized, because being penalized creates a very large gap. In no sense do penalties 'enhance variety'. Believability, maybe, kinda.. sorta... ..well no. Not really. An Orc at 12 int is smarter then an average human, period, end of discussion; In no sense can you continue to say that the Orc is dumb.



Edit: In narrative terms, a lack of racial penalties means that there's nothing special about your Half-Orc Wizard - he's just another wizard, not an individual struggling against his racial identity.
If the average orc is still stupid, the narrative is not lost.

Morty
2008-02-28, 04:13 PM
Not Optimized is genuinely different from Penalized, because being penalized creates a very large gap.

Again, I don't see racial penalties as "penalizing". You're making a class/race choice that doesn't mesh well together and you should be aware of it. Why should players get only good stuff?


In no sense do penalties 'enhance variety'. Believability, maybe, kinda.. sorta... ..well no. Not really. An Orc at 12 int is smarter then a human, period, end of discussion.

Yes, Orc with 12 int is smarter than average human, but much smarter than average orc. And there are levels of intelligence reachable for humans but not orcs. Also, it increases variety in a way that player has more choice than "what cool stuff do I get". Besides, I don't claim 3ed penalty system is ideal, but there should be one.

Rachel Lorelei
2008-02-28, 04:21 PM
Again, I don't see racial penalties as "penalizing". You're making a class/race choice that doesn't mesh well together and you should be aware of it. Why should players get only good stuff?

Of course they're penalizing, they're *penalties*! I mean, what?

Players should get only good stuff because it's lame geting bad stuff. Getting fewer skill points because I'm playing a half-orc isn't fun. A +4 INT difference compared to the Grey Elf for a Half-Orc wizard is very not fun, and even that -2 means you're paying 10 points for a 14 INT or 18 points for a 16 INT. It's fairly prohibitive.
If I want to roleplay a half-orc wizard, I should not have to suffer for it mechanically. Playing a character who gets big penalties to their primary role isn't a lot of fun.

Saph
2008-02-28, 04:23 PM
For me, this is a bit too much like the stuff we've been getting from WotC designers for the past few months.

"4e is really really great!"
"How?"
"It's just great! It's better than 3rd ed in every way!"
"Okay . . . how, specifically?"
"We can't tell you! But it's great!"

I'm glad he likes it so much, but I'd much rather get an infodump of mechanics changes and make up my own mind about its greatness or the lack therof. I'll have to wait till the books come out, I guess.

- Saph

Rutee
2008-02-28, 04:23 PM
Again, I don't see racial penalties as "penalizing". You're making a class/race choice that doesn't mesh well together and you should be aware of it.
You don't see how a class/race choice that has anti-synergy hurts variety? Forget this strange and incorrect viewpoint that you're not being penalized, how in the name of Gods Green Earth does htat come out increasing variety?


Why should players get only good stuff?
Uh, why shouldn't they? As far as I'm concerned, DnD's take on weaknesses did nothing for the narrative, nor do they enhance drama. They merely serve to pigeonhole people mechanically. If that enhances your play experience, have at it; Hurt's mine, to say the least.



Yes, Orc with 12 int is smarter than average human, but much smarter than average orc. And there are levels of intelligence reachable for humans but not orcs. Also, it increases variety in a way that player has more choice than "what cool stuff do I get". Besides, I don't claim 3ed penalty system is ideal, but there should be one.
....It doesn't add more choices; It adds penalties to one's choices after the fact. It increases the weight of a decision, but only by making it more important to not screw up.

Artanis
2008-02-28, 04:27 PM
For me, this is a bit too much like the stuff we've been getting from WotC designers for the past few months.

"4e is really really great!"
"How?"
"It's just great! It's better than 3rd ed in every way!"
"Okay . . . how, specifically?"
"We can't tell you! But it's great!"
I already called two people on this, so I'll say it again:

He DOES say why he thinks it's great. He explains many differences that he says makes it better than 3e, and he explains why this makes it better. Whether or not you believe his explanations is up to you, of course, but they are there.


I'm glad he likes it so much, but I'd much rather get an infodump of mechanics changes and make up my own mind about its greatness or the lack therof. I'll have to wait till the books come out, I guess.

- Saph
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73704

AKA_Bait
2008-02-28, 04:30 PM
Aye... this sounds good, but also sounds filtered.
I will say this article moves me 0 points in either direction of "hate" or "love".

Same here.


But, at this point, the only people who are actually bothering to write up long reviews of fourth edition are the people who feel really strongly about it. So you have an overwhelmingly positive section of reviews and those who hate it and don't want to have anything to do with it. The latter are less likely, I feel, to do much research because they don't care to know.

There may also be an issue with NDA's. WotC is likley waive at least portions of the NDA to let someone who is a playtester or otherwise has knowledge of the details of the project go ahead and put out a good review. I'm not sure they would do the same for a bad review.


If we keep seeing all-positive reviews in the next few days, I will be suspicious. Or awed. But the reason all reviews before this week have been such suspicious pure optimism is because WotC only gave people partial permission to loosen their NDA's and review 4e at all if they were going to say only positive things.

Yeah, what he said.

I'm looking forward to seeing reviews and comments by the players in the games this weekend. I strongly doubt they will all be positive. Time will tell.

Theodoxus
2008-02-28, 04:30 PM
Yes, Orc with 12 int is smarter than average human, but much smarter than average orc. And there are levels of intelligence reachable for humans but not orcs. Also, it increases variety in a way that player has more choice than "what cool stuff do I get". Besides, I don't claim 3ed penalty system is ideal, but there should be one.

Huh? A human starting int is max 18, an orc, what, 14? (maybe 16, I forget the exact penalty). Even with 14, adding 1 every 4 levels, a headband of intellect +6 and a tome of intelligence +5, the human now has a 34 int, the orc a 30. In terms of comprehending the world around them, they're statistically dead even. Sure, the human will have a few additional spells and a slightly better DC with his spells, but in terms of smarts, you'd be hard pressed when talking to either one, to figure out which is smarter.

Morty
2008-02-28, 04:31 PM
If I want to roleplay a half-orc wizard, I should not have to suffer for it mechanically. Playing a character who gets big penalties to their primary role isn't a lot of fun.

And why should very character be flawless? If it makes sense for half-orcs to be poor wizards, I can accept the fact that it means half-orc wizard will be a bit worse mechanically.


You don't see how a class/race choice that has anti-synergy hurts variety? Forget this strange and incorrect viewpoint that you're not being penalized, how in the name of Gods Green Earth does htat come out increasing variety?

Well, maybe "variety" isn't the best word here. What I mean is that it emphasizes differences between races, which I feel is important.


Uh, why shouldn't they? As far as I'm concerned, DnD's take on weaknesses did nothing for the narrative, nor do they enhance drama. They merely serve to pigeonhole people mechanically. If that enhances your play experience, have at it; Hurt's mine, to say the least.

Races will get pidgeonholed mechanically anyway, bonuses or not. And racial penalties serve for giving races more personality than "what cool stuff do I get from that race".

Rutee
2008-02-28, 04:35 PM
And why should very character be flawless? If it makes sense for half-orcs to be poor wizards, I can accept the fact that it means half-orc wizard will be a bit worse mechanically.
Who said the wizard is flawless? They just don't get an int penalty. Please tell me you don't consider the sum and total of possible flaws to be mechanical.


Well, maybe "variety" isn't the best word here. What I mean is that it emphasizes differences between races, which I feel is important.
Do you capitalize on these differences in the plot or world? Do most people? Or is it generally just treated as the outlines to make a racial hat?



Races will get pidgeonholed mechanically anyway, bonuses or not. And racial penalties serve for giving races more personality than "what cool stuff do I get from that race".
Why do I feel the distinctive vibe of Calvin's Dad here? In what sense do cool things not give personality, while the artificial suffering does?

Artanis
2008-02-28, 04:37 PM
Races will get pidgeonholed mechanically anyway, bonuses or not. And racial penalties serve for giving races more personality than "what cool stuff do I get from that race".
You seem to be under the impression that stat differences are disappearing. They aren't. Elves will still have more DEX than Dwarves, who in turn will have more CON than Elves. So stat differences will still be there, even without the "what cool stuff do I get" that you're so hung up on. All they're doing is making those stat differences not require potentially crippling one or the other (or even both).

SamTheCleric
2008-02-28, 04:38 PM
It's like the flaws in UA. No one takes them for the flaw to make for interesting roleplaying... everyone just wants an extra feat.

Saph
2008-02-28, 04:38 PM
I already called two people on this, so I'll say it again:

He DOES say why he thinks it's great. He explains many differences that he says makes it better than 3e, and he explains why this makes it better. Whether or not you believe his explanations is up to you, of course, but they are there.

There is more content, yes . . . but the gushyness factor is still way too high for me. That was why I was comparing it to the stuff from the 4e designers. As before, I'm going to wait and see.

- Saph

Illiterate Scribe
2008-02-28, 04:46 PM
Don't get me wrong - I'm not in the "he's a shill" camp; I know AICN and trust them. HOWEVER....

I am having a hard time allowing myself to hope that this is awesome and as ful of win as indicated.

It's like...

Imagine your D&D party has been wandering through troll/drow/illithid infested Underdark for months, lost, running low on food, going a bit batty. Suddenly the DM rolls a few dice and smiles broadly.. "You see ahead of you a shimmering curtain of light, beyond which you see a sunlit meadow, filled with frolicking elves, dryads, nymphs and other cute woodland creatures. What do you do?"

/thread right there. You win, Mr Friendly.

Rachel Lorelei
2008-02-28, 05:16 PM
And why should very character be flawless? If it makes sense for half-orcs to be poor wizards, I can accept the fact that it means half-orc wizard will be a bit worse mechanically.
Every character isn't flawless. All charaters have flaws. That doesn't mean that I should be heavily punished mechanically because I feel like playing a certain race/class combination. Besides, there's already mechanical flaws: I'm already not getting +2 AC, +2 to hit with rays from being a halfling, or +1 AC, +1 to hit, +2 COn from being a gnome, or bow proficiency and +2 DEX (huge at low levels) from being an elf, or +2 saves vs. spells and +2 COn for being a dwarf, or etc. There is absolutely no good reason to stack -2 to a primary stat on top of that! It doesn't add variety, or personality.


Well, maybe "variety" isn't the best word here. What I mean is that it emphasizes differences between races, which I feel is important.
You know, I have no problem making my half-orcs different from my elves. I don't need -2 to my primary stat--meaning, basically, I'm never going to play it--to help me. Not many people do.
There are plenty enough differences without adding penalties to the primary stats for some classes.
Even if orcs are overall stupider, this doesn't need to be represented in the PCs. The PC could be the only 18-INT orc.


Races will get pidgeonholed mechanically anyway, bonuses or not. And racial penalties serve for giving races more personality than "what cool stuff do I get from that race".
What? No, they don't. Not having +2 INT pigeonholes you MUCH less than having -2 INT. Also, racial pesonality is in something called "flavor". How is it that having +2 to a stat doesn't give personality, but having -2 does?

Kioran
2008-02-28, 05:24 PM
Every character isn't flawless. All charaters have flaws. That doesn't mean that I should be heavily punished mechanically because I feel like playing a certain race/class combination. Besides, there's already mechanical flaws: I'm already not getting +2 AC, +2 to hit with rays from being a halfling, or +1 AC, +1 to hit, +2 COn from being a gnome, or bow proficiency and +2 DEX (huge at low levels) from being an elf, or +2 saves vs. spells and +2 COn for being a dwarf, or etc. There is absolutely no good reason to stack -2 to a primary stat on top of that! It doesn't add variety, or personality.

You know, I have no problem making my half-orcs different from my elves. I don't need -2 to my primary stat--meaning, basically, I'm never going to play it--to help me. Not many people do.
There are plenty enough differences without adding penalties to the primary stats for some classes.
Even if orcs are overall stupider, this doesn't need to be represented in the PCs. The PC could be the only 18-INT orc.

What? No, they don't. Not having +2 INT pigeonholes you MUCH less than having -2 INT. Also, racial pesonality is in something called "flavor". How is it that having +2 to a stat doesn't give personality, but having -2 does?

This sounds very much like players I´ve known, that, for example, want to play a warrior princess, but are downright appaled if they receive any visible and messy, but essentially not disfiguring, wound. Well, sorry, but the good comes with the bad, at least for me.
For some of us, it breaks suspension of disbelief if a stupid race isn´t, you know, actually stupid. Either way, any label attached to the race had better have some backing. It´s the way I like this - If I want to play someone struggling on despite a handicap, I want to actually have a handicap

....And yes, success is much more rewarding if it´s hard earned.

Rutee
2008-02-28, 05:31 PM
This sounds very much like players I´ve known, that, for example, want to play a warrior princess, but are downright appaled if they receive any visible and messy, but essentially not disfiguring, wound. Well, sorry, but the good comes with the bad, at least for me.
For some of us, it breaks suspension of disbelief if a stupid race isn´t, you know, actually stupid. Either way, any label attached to the race had better have some backing. It´s the way I like this - If I want to play someone struggling on despite a handicap, I want to actually have a handicap

....And yes, success is much more rewarding if it´s hard earned.
In order.
...."Don't mechanically penalize me for flavor" sounds like "Don't touch my flavor"?
The PC has to receive an Int Penalty because most Orcs are stupid? How does it break your verisimilitude to have an int 16 Orc, but not an Int 14 (16 -2), when /neither is dumb/. If the player wants to be a dumb orc, he can make it a dump stat like most orcs do.
Maybe it wasn't the handicap that drew me to the race?

You take pride in overcoming annoyances?

ColdBrew
2008-02-28, 05:33 PM
I agree, the opportunity cost of choosing a particular race is enough.

Ascension
2008-02-28, 05:59 PM
I think the heart of the matter is this: penalties shouldn't necessarily apply to PCs, but they're essential for differentiating NPCs. If the average orc doesn't get an intelligence penalty but the orc race is still supposed to be "stupid" on average, then the average human will have to be built with a better INT score, or racial INT bonuses... and if humans get racial INT bonuses, then the orc might as well get penalties, because it'll all turn out the same in the end.

Now, I guess races can work without penalties in 4E, since they're changing the way NPCs are built, but it won't work in 3.X because nearly all "average" NPCs start (before racial modifiers) with tens across the board.

If the average NPC is built with different rules in 4E, we'll essentially be devoid of an average to compare PCs against, and if we're devoid of an average, then we don't have to worry about whether the average orc is stupid or not. In 3.X, where everything is extrapolated from average scores, we need racial penalties.

Rachel Lorelei
2008-02-28, 05:59 PM
This sounds very much like players I´ve known, that, for example, want to play a warrior princess, but are downright appaled if they receive any visible and messy, but essentially not disfiguring, wound. Well, sorry, but the good comes with the bad, at least for me.
You can self-impose bad with your good if you like it so much; it's not good game design to make me suffer for your preferences, too.

"Don't mechanically penalize my flavor" is, as was said, different from "don't touch my flavor". What's more, "don't touch my flavor" is perfectly viable, and many good systems incorporate it into the design. In Weapons of the Gods, if I want to play a Beautiful Sword Princess, I can spend 3 or 6 Destiny to buy Quality or Perfect Beauty. This has certain mechanical effects... but what it also says is that I want to play a pretty character. That means that the DM shouldn't unprettify me for long--and if he does, I get the Destiny invested in my beauty back to spend on something else. Similarily, if I purchase a Quality sword, it shouldn't arbitrarily be stolen (if it gets broken by Weapons of the Gods, I receive another shortly or get the Destiny back and spend it by purchasing another sword, etc).
This is because


For some of us, it breaks suspension of disbelief if a stupid race isn´t, you know, actually stupid. Either way, any label attached to the race had better have some backing. It´s the way I like this - If I want to play someone struggling on despite a handicap, I want to actually have a handicap

....And yes, success is much more rewarding if it´s hard earned.
You can handicap yourself just fine. Point-buy a 14 INT, or put a 14-15-ish score into INT if you roll, when you play a half-orc wizard. Me, I'll be happy not spending 10 points just to get that 14.
The race might be stupid, but individuals can be exceptional. You can have "orcs tend to have low intelligence" without PC orcs having an intelligence penalty. My 16 INT half-orc is NOT stupid--whether I spent 10 points on that 16 INT or 16 points. The only difference is that I'm losing 6 points of point-buy just to play the character I want, on top of the already-existing opportunity cost of being a half-orc wizard. That isn't fun.

If I have to pay 16 points rather than 10 for a 16 INT, I, as the player, am being handicapped. My character still has a 16 INT. The penalty translates onto everything else; it doesn't even do what it's supposed to.

Rutee
2008-02-28, 06:06 PM
I thought I was the only person on this board who ever played WotG. Spiffy to know I'm not. Wuxia buddies4lyfe.

Rachel Lorelei
2008-02-28, 06:09 PM
I thought I was the only person on this board who ever played WotG. Spiffy to know I'm not. Wuxia buddies4lyfe.

Rebecca Sean Borgstrom had a major hand in its creation; how could I resist?

You should start a WotG game here. :)

Rutee
2008-02-28, 06:12 PM
Absolutely not. My PbP participation has died these past few weeks because I'm poring over several thousands of pages of text. I MIGHT when I finish and things stabilize, but not before then, certainly. I'd keep you in mind if I did though.

Also
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j227/RuteeKatreya/149488052_16f5868de9.jpg

Kurald Galain
2008-02-28, 06:34 PM
Aye... this sounds good, but also sounds filtered.

Precisely. This sounds like a highly biased review from somebody paid by WOTC to write a good review. That is, of course, a common marketing strategy, but it really isn't saying anything substantial.

Artanis
2008-02-28, 06:37 PM
Precisely. This sounds like a highly biased review from somebody paid by WOTC to write a good review. That is, of course, a common marketing strategy, but it really isn't saying anything substantial.
Perhaps. However...


Umm, not to sound trite or anything, but this is from Ain't It Cool News, which is about the most anti-corporate movie review site that is in existence. The guy giving the review, Massawyrm, is one of the most trusted reviewers on that site, behind Harry Knowles, Moriarty, Capone and maybe one or two others. He ain't no shill.

Titanium Dragon
2008-02-28, 06:37 PM
Every character isn't flawless. All charaters have flaws. That doesn't mean that I should be heavily punished mechanically because I feel like playing a certain race/class combination. Besides, there's already mechanical flaws: I'm already not getting +2 AC, +2 to hit with rays from being a halfling, or +1 AC, +1 to hit, +2 COn from being a gnome, or bow proficiency and +2 DEX (huge at low levels) from being an elf, or +2 saves vs. spells and +2 COn for being a dwarf, or etc. There is absolutely no good reason to stack -2 to a primary stat on top of that! It doesn't add variety, or personality.

If every other race had a +2 bonus to intelligence, and you had no bonus to intelligence, it'd be exactly the same.

There are systems which work the way you say, though, but generally there the racial maximums exist. GURPS, for instance, you may start out with different stats, but in a "realistic" game your stats are within +-10 of your racial norm. So while a human and a centaur may both have 16 strength, if both choose to go bodybuild the human will peak long before the centaur will.

That said, that system is arguably preferable, but that's not really the way D&D works, and your argument that you shouldn't be penalized for playing a half-orc wizard is rather silly - if every other race is just better at it than you are, then there's no difference between that and you just being worse than every other race (from your perspective).

Rutee
2008-02-28, 06:39 PM
If every other race had a +2 bonus to intelligence, and you had no bonus to intelligence, it'd be exactly the same.

You argument is hinged on a condition that doesn't exist.

Kurald Galain
2008-02-28, 07:36 PM
Perhaps. However...

Well, I've never heard of this "Puggins", but as he registered yesterday and has made all of three posts here, I'm not about to take his word for, fell, anything.

ColdBrew
2008-02-28, 07:52 PM
You argument is hinged on a condition that doesn't exist.
But a condition his opponent appears to be advocating. Pointing out that the consequences of her preferred system are identical those of the system already in place is fair play.

Game on!

Artanis
2008-02-28, 07:56 PM
Well, I've never heard of this "Puggins", but as he registered yesterday and has made all of three posts here, I'm not about to take his word for, fell, anything.
Huh, hadn't noticed that. Guess I've been at work long enough for my brain to start to give out :smallfrown:

ColdBrew
2008-02-28, 07:56 PM
Well, I've never heard of this "Puggins", but as he registered yesterday and has made all of three posts here, I'm not about to take his word for, fell, anything.
Sometimes a gushingly enthusiastic account of one's experience is, y'know, a gushingly enthusiastic account of one's experience. It's not like you have to buy the 4E books before you can try out the system. Disregard Massawyrm's opinion all you want, but it's a leap to start calling him a shill.

Also, I love the implication that new posters should be ignored. Bravo.

Matthew
2008-02-28, 08:27 PM
I don't think that Kurald is suggesting that new posters should be ignored. In fact, I think he is inviting Puggins to back up his claim or for somebody else to verify it. Fact is, Forums are subject to dummy accounts for the purpose of flaming, trolling or butressing controversial claims. I'm not saying Puggins is such an account, but it is an interesting possibility.

Also, could you please cut down on the sarcasm?

Illiterate Scribe
2008-02-28, 08:40 PM
The mighty wikipedia has some stuff to say about this matter : here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain%27t_It_Cool_News).

Of course, it is a {{fact}} tagged piece, but still, there is an accusation that AICN is involved in those sorts of activities:


The site attracted a large number of anonymous Hollywood "insiders" who would submit reports on topics the studios tried to keep secret. The success of the site made it powerful enough to begin possibly affecting box office figures via "net buzz."

ColdBrew
2008-02-29, 12:06 AM
Also, could you please cut down on the sarcasm?
I could, but it would be dishonest. You want me to express my true feelings here, don't you?


The mighty wikipedia has some stuff to say about this matter : here.

Of course, it is a {{fact}} tagged piece, but still, there is an accusation that AICN is involved in those sorts of activities:
What's the point of that quote? I really don't get what you're trying to say.

Pronounceable
2008-02-29, 12:10 AM
If something sounds too good to be true, then it very likely isn't.



That said, I get the feeling that crunchy bits of 4e will be very solid and worth yoinking. But much of the fluffier stuff I've seen (along with the mindset implied by official stuff) has pushed me into "not gonna play" side. That won't stop me from shamelessly stealing from their ruleset however.

Skjaldbakka
2008-02-29, 01:45 AM
I don't buy it. How the heck did he get released from his NDA early? I know some people that playtested 4th who decided to finish finalizing their 3.5 homebrew set once the playtest was over.

They of course couldn't tell me anything about the 4th ed itself except that their NDA doesn't expire until the release date.

Given all the secrecy and misdirection we've already dealt with surrounding 4E, I wouldn't be surprised if this review is a plant.


Clerics don’t just hide behind the fighter waiting to stand them up any more.

-Only WotC and the most casual of players has that image of the cleric.

The Fighter is still a sword whirling death machine that gets a lot of chances to drop beasts.

-The fighter isn't and never has been. If it is in 4E, power to it. This is again a sentiment of WotC and casual players only.

Is there anything I don’t like? Not in the rules. [...] The rules? They’re damned near perfect. I have zero complaints.

-Yep, that looks like a lie to me. Nothing is perfect. He doesn't make any complaints. None. It is much more likely that this guy is plugging for WotC than that the game is perfect.

Beren One-Hand
2008-02-29, 02:07 AM
Is there anything I don’t like? Not in the rules. [...] The rules? They’re damned near perfect. I have zero complaints.

-Yep, that looks like a lie to me. Nothing is perfect. He doesn't make any complaints. None. It is much more likely that this guy is plugging for WotC than that the game is perfect.

While this is suspicious, I found his statement of running off and selling a lot of his 3.5 material after using the 4.0 registered higher upon the Viral Sniff-O-Meter.

Rutee
2008-02-29, 02:12 AM
Thanks a metric ton, Sony.

Skjaldbakka
2008-02-29, 02:48 AM
Sony's got nothing to do with it, at least not on my end. What the heck are you talking about with Sony, anyway?

I am simply stating that it is significantly more likely (some of my math inclined friends might say an order of magnitude more likely) that this guy is lying for personal benefit, than it is that 4E is perfect in every way, as the reviewer is saying.

It is also something of an issue that there are apparently no negative reviews whatsoever. Even good products will get a bad review from somebody.

I'm just glad that my club is buying a copy of 4E. I don't have to make the decision to buy or not to buy until I've already taken a look at the books. At no cost to me.


edit- if anything, it is my naturally pessimistic nature

Rutee
2008-02-29, 02:53 AM
Sony helped bring viral marketing scams to the forefront, among others.

Anyway, the only part that seems 'too positive' is that they haven't managed to screw up yet, in that reviewer's opinion. Because no lie, I've liked the direction 4e seems to be moving in. The part that I can't quite buy is managing to get the execution right..

Skjaldbakka
2008-02-29, 03:00 AM
I can see why a big (apparent) anime and Exalted fan would like the direction 4E is going, but I don't. I play BESM or Exalted when I want to play a game that plays the way 4E appears to be going.

I am in fact converting a campaign that I've been planning off and on for a year or so to BESM, after getting fed up with trying to shoehorn the setting into 3.5 rules. Of course, the problem I have with BESM is that I have to plan and prep a lot more, as improvising is something I fail at miserably in BESM- I need to have stats pre-made. As opposed to d20 or WoD where I don't.

Rutee
2008-02-29, 03:04 AM
I don't roleplay at all when I want to be a weak human of utterly ordinary fleshmeats; I am that in real life.

Skjaldbakka
2008-02-29, 03:05 AM
in the immortal words of a friend of mine: "bawahuh?"

What does that have to do with the price of oil in arabia?

Rutee
2008-02-29, 03:08 AM
That's pretty much what DnD is for half its existence or so. One of the single most positive aspects of the changes is making low levels /not/ weak ordinary humans.

Not totally detached from humanity, just not ordinary humans.

Skjaldbakka
2008-02-29, 03:12 AM
I have not experienced that problem. Most campaigns I play in start at 2-4th level, just a couple levels before the power jump.

The 1-20 spread doesn't support half either, as a PC is only really fragile in the 1-5 range, which is 1/4, not 1/2.

Rutee
2008-02-29, 03:17 AM
You're not that far above at 5-8 either, unless you're a spellcaster perhaps. The other classes can't pull off truly superhuman acts until the lowish teens, I believe? It's a bit better with ToB though, in that regard.

Rachel Lorelei
2008-02-29, 03:17 AM
Oh, come on. 4E looks nothing like Exalted. First-level characters are competent warriors now, and they don't die in one shot. That's a good thing, and is very different from Heavenly Guardian Defense! I parry the explosion.

Rutee
2008-02-29, 03:18 AM
Are you implying that being able to parry the ground, to avoid falling damage, is a bad thing? :smallconfused:

Skjaldbakka
2008-02-29, 03:26 AM
Oh, come on. 4E looks nothing like Exalted. First-level characters are competent warriors now, and they don't die in one shot. That's a good thing, and is very different from Heavenly Guardian Defense! I parry the explosion.

You must not play all of Exalted, then. IIRC, that is a solar charm. Heroic mortals and dragonbloods don't have that.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised at all if there is a way to parry an explosion in 4E.

Lastly, I don't really care that they are making 1st level into 5th level. There are quite a few RPGs out there that start characters at competent. 4E isn't doing anything new on that count. A starting shadowrun character, for example, is about equivalent to a 5th level D&D character (in the current edition).

Rachel Lorelei
2008-02-29, 03:28 AM
You must not play all of Exalted, then. IIRC, that is a solar charm. Heroic mortals and dragonbloods don't have that.

Solars are the most iconic Exalts.

Seriously, you can't possibly be implying that first-level 4E characters have anything in common even with starting Dragonblooded.

Rutee
2008-02-29, 03:29 AM
I don't think he was saying it mapped onto Exalted. I think he was saying that he can see how an Exalted fan would like, you know, DnD characters being more awesome.

Which is indeed a large part of why I'm looking forward to 4e.

Skjaldbakka
2008-02-29, 03:38 AM
Correctumundo.

I like to start a D&D game at the high end of cannon fodder(2-4), and work my way up to heroic. 4E isn't going to support that model. That isn't why I'm not keen on 4E, but its no less true for not being a breaking point.

One of my big gripes is that only PCs act like PCs mechanically. I have always been a fan of throwing class levels on monsters. That is apparently not going to be possible in 4E.


Solars are the most iconic Exalts.

Point. I don't play Solar games though. Too much phenominal cosmic power for my tastes. I am in a Dragonblood game, and I could easily see my necromancer being about 1st level 4E PC in power level. Can't say for certain, but I wouldn't be surprised.

horseboy
2008-02-29, 03:58 AM
You know what this review reminds me of? Every once in a while I get into conversations with friends where they say stuff like:
"Dude, I just saw this movie and it was great!"
"Yeah, what was it?"
"I don't remember the name of it now, but there was this rabbit that like jumped up and ripped this guys throat out. So they blew it up with hand grenades."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah, then at the end these British cops come and arrest everybody. It's a messed up ending."
"Yeah, that's Mony Python and the Holy Grail. That movie is as old as I am and I've been telling you about it since we've been friends."
"Really?"
"Yeah."

(To paraphrase) With all rules working the same way you know how to wing something because it all works the same way. Duh. This is something RPG industries learned 30 years ago. Nice to see D&D finally caught up.

I'll be more interested when 4 is reviewed by someone who has XP outside of just D&D.

Kioran
2008-02-29, 05:05 AM
Regardless of all the gushing and hyperbole, I will add some points to my "positive 4th Ed." list - yes, they got me on those:

- Fights lasting considerably longer (about time!)
- confirmed non-cleric healing (I´ve homebrewed it onto more classes and made SLAs available, but yeah - that´s a problem that needed addressing)

They also irked me with:

- diagonal movement (wtf? I mean I´ve heard horror-stories about people not having their elementary school stuff down pat being less than uncommon, but.....that´s unwarranted oversimplification)

And reminded me of their "no penalties policy" (*bleh*)

Regardless, this is a minor score for 4th.

JBento
2008-02-29, 05:44 AM
But, there is a way to parry explosions in 3.X already - it's called Evasion and a successful Reflex save - even if you're blind, tied up and in a airtight room :smallwink: (you may say otherwise in your games - I know I do - but that's what the rules of 3.X say)

Other than that little snippet of (not-so-much) wisdom, I may very well just lurk in a corner and withhold commentary until I see crunch.

CRUNCH!CRUNCH!CRUNCH!
WHAT DO WE WANT?
CRUUUUUUNCH!!!!
WHEN DO WE WANT IT?
YESTERDAAAAAAAAAY!!!

Starbuck_II
2008-02-29, 07:00 AM
But, there is a way to parry explosions in 3.X already - it's called Evasion and a successful Reflex save - even if you're blind, tied up and in a airtight room :smallwink: (you may say otherwise in your games - I know I do - but that's what the rules of 3.X say)

Other than that little snippet of (not-so-much) wisdom, I may very well just lurk in a corner and withhold commentary until I see crunch.

CRUNCH!CRUNCH!CRUNCH!
WHAT DO WE WANT?
CRUUUUUUNCH!!!!
WHEN DO WE WANT IT?
YESTERDAAAAAAAAAY!!!

Actually, you can't be helpless. So while you can be using Evasion while blind and in a airtight room; you can't while tied up. You can still use Reflex saves, but you'll still take some damage.




I don't roleplay at all when I want to be a weak human of utterly ordinary fleshmeats; I am that in real life.

Hmm, does that mean I would be roleplaying if I did play a weak human since I'm not?

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-29, 07:07 AM
Clerics don’t just hide behind the fighter waiting to stand them up any more.

-Only WotC and the most casual of players has that image of the cleric.

-Did you play 1st/2nd Edition? This was a lot more common, at least among the gaming groups I was in.. The "killer Cleric" didn't seem to really pop up, at least in my experience, until 3e. YMMV, of course.


The Fighter is still a sword whirling death machine that gets a lot of chances to drop beasts.

-The fighter isn't and never has been. If it is in 4E, power to it. This is again a sentiment of WotC and casual players only.

-It's really the underlined part I underlined for empahasis that bothers me. To say the fighter isn't and never has been a whirling death machine, well it's just untrue. In 1/2e especially, the Fighter was a godless killing machine a few levels ahead of everyone (thanks bonus xp!); every wizard took Haste (if they knew what was good for em, anyway!) and fighters went to town. In 3e the fighter still can be a "whirling death machine" I am sure more than a few builds could be submitted to illustrate that.


Is there anything I don’t like? Not in the rules. [...] The rules? They’re damned near perfect. I have zero complaints.

-Yep, that looks like a lie to me. Nothing is perfect. He doesn't make any complaints. None. It is much more likely that this guy is plugging for WotC than that the game is perfect.

-Technically, he didn't say it was *perfect*. He said it was "damned near perfect" and that *he* had zero complaints. He is not you, nor are you me, nor am I M0rt etc. etc. I find the article hard to believe as well, however I am not going to say he is a shill; maybe it's just that *he* really likes it.

JBento
2008-02-29, 07:14 AM
I could be wrong since I don't have the books with me, but I believe that tied up=/=helpless. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Kurald Galain
2008-02-29, 07:39 AM
-Did you play 1st/2nd Edition? This was a lot more common, at least among the gaming groups I was in..
Well, except that in 1E, clerics didn't even get spells at first level, so could hardly be expected to "healbot" all the time; and in both 1st and 2nd edition, clerics had the second-best attack bonus (better than rogues, for instance) and the best saving throws, and good attack spells across the board. Warrior clerics have been perfectly viable since pretty much the origin of the game. Of course, CODzilla was overdoing it, but overall 3E power level is higher than in 2E anyway.



-It's really the underlined part I underlined for empahasis that bothers me. To say the fighter isn't and never has been a whirling death machine, well it's just untrue.
Correct; fighters were highly effective in 1st and 2nd editions, but pretty much everybody on the message boards is perfectly aware that this hasn't been the case since 3rd edition came out nearly a decade ago (except in highly optimized builds, perhaps). So the statement that "fighters are still whirling death machines" is simply false; they may "again become" whirling death machines.


I find the article hard to believe as well, however I am not going to say he is a shill; maybe it's just that *he* really likes it.
He is either an obvious shill, or an overly enthousiastic fanboy that says a lot more about his opinion than about the facts. In neither case is he objective, in neither case should this be considered a serious review, and in both cases is it overhyped marketing, intentional or no.

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-29, 07:46 AM
Correct; fighters were highly effective in 1st and 2nd editions, but pretty much everybody on the message boards is perfectly aware that this hasn't been the case since 3rd edition came out nearly a decade ago (except in highly optimized builds, perhaps). So the statement that "fighters are still whirling death machines" is simply false; they may "again become" whirling death machines.


We may well be into semantics at this point, but I think this is a matter of persepective. Sure the 3e fighter sucks compared to a Batman or CoDzilla, but he is still pretty spiffy. I mean, at least compared to say - a room full of goblins. I think it is unfair to call a statement that is, essentially, a subjective opinion and declare it to be false.

Ascension
2008-02-29, 07:48 AM
- confirmed non-cleric healing (I´ve homebrewed it onto more classes and made SLAs available, but yeah - that´s a problem that needed addressing)

Now, I don't mind spreading it around to more classes ('course, it isn't fully cleric exclusive in 3.5), but giving healing abilities to everyone strikes me the wrong way. Of course, we don't have the full rules, but it appears that the martial classes will be getting healing in the form of "healing surges," which I can only assume are supposed to be some sort of adrenaline-fueled "second wind" mechanic. If sheer adrenaline can heal you substantially enough that you don't require a medic at all, something's rotten in the state of Denmark.

JBento
2008-02-29, 07:52 AM
There was quite a bit of in the kingdom of 3.X Denmark already - I blame it on all the cheese :smallbiggrin:

Zincorium
2008-02-29, 08:00 AM
I find it interesting how a few people keep agreeing with each other and one-upping each other in terms of jaded dismissal until they all agree with each other that:

1. No one could possibly like 4th edition this much
2. The person writing the review was paid to write it.
3. Someone on the board is a shell account trying to prop it up.


If I suggested that people were complaining about fourth edition were being paid by another company to do so, I would rightly be laughed at. Even though it's at least as possible as the above.

Matthew
2008-02-29, 08:03 AM
I could, but it would be dishonest. You want me to express my true feelings here, don't you?

I somehow doubt sarcasm is the only method available to you to express your true feelings. It is one of several ways to be passive aggressive on a forum, however.



I don't think he was saying it mapped onto Exalted. I think he was saying that he can see how an Exalted fan would like, you know, DnD characters being more awesome.

Exactly.



Which is indeed a large part of why I'm looking forward to 4e.

Heh, heh. Different strokes for different folks.

Awesomeness is, of course, all relative to the foes your facing. For instance:

AD&D Orcs: 14+ to hit AC 15 (Mail Armour), 1-8 Damage (2-16 Damage, if you're using the Optional 2e Critical Hit Rule - Hint: don't)

D20 Orcs: 11+ to hit AC 15 (Mail Armour), 2-12 Damage (4-24 points on a Critical)

AD&D Level 1 Fighter: 10-14 Hit Points (unless you're really hardcore and make them roll their first Hit Die).

D20 Level 1 Fighter: 10-14 Hit Points

If I want to play a high powered game that resembles D&D, I might consider 4e. :smallbiggrin:



Well, except that in 1E, clerics didn't even get spells at first level, so could hardly be expected to "healbot" all the time.

Just to be clear, this was the case in Basic/Classic Dungeons & Dragons, not AD&D 1e.

Rad
2008-02-29, 08:49 AM
The part that got me think was the one about the social impact on his group. His wife getting sucked into the game and everybody else loving the game when they were not as enthusiastic before.
Hello? This is just a trap for geeks! Sure, buy this and everybody will love the things as you do! You will not be alone in your likings! And if you're in High school your previous experience will make you so popular that every cheerleader will have heard of you when you get to college! [\sarcasm]
Honestly, this looks a lot like they sat down on a table, looked at what were the things that made potential customers unhappy and then promised them that they will all be fixed if they just buy their new product. Maybe they actually looked down to those problems and managed to solve them, but making you feel that they are now gone is clearly a job for marketing.

EDIT: and then what, they say the rules are easy and intuitive so your wife that doesn't read the books is participating and, at the same time, the rules depth is still there for her geek husband? Waitwaitwait, please pick one and then it could be true, but please don't contradict yourself.

The whole review was pure marketing. Maybe it was true? Sure. And maybe that pill will actually make you lose weight, those cereals are really that good and you can really feel like you are on a tropical island if you drink the right brand of soda, but don't get mad at me if I don't believe it until I see it.

Indon
2008-02-29, 08:55 AM
3. Someone on the board is a shell account trying to prop it up.

I consider this unlikely and slightly silly, personally.

Now on the topics of gaming:

-If the differences between races include a lot more 'cool' things now, then a -2 penalty to a stat would retain the feel of having to overcome adversity while being a smaller portion of racial identity. I feel the 'no penalty' change is just another manifestation of Wizards' philosophy that characters should no longer have significant mechanical differences.

-I don't need to roleplay a weak human fleshbag. But if I wanted to roleplay a soldier in a squad who needed every advantage they could get just to survive an encounter (i.e. realistic combat) and where any wound could concievably lead to my death, low-level 3.x does that much better than it seems 4'th edition will.

Wizards seems to want to make Fourth edition better at telling stories (by dropping the priority of simulationist play significantly, focusing the game on the PC's, making plot devices into real plot devices instead of just spells, etc), but their changes seem to be limiting the scope of story the system can readily tell.

SamTheCleric
2008-02-29, 08:57 AM
Part 2 - A review of the DM stuff.


Hola all. Massawyrm here.

So, now that I’ve got all the basics and the impressions out of the way. Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. What was it like to run a game in 4E? Pretty freaking awesome. All this talk of simplicity goes out the window once you begin to talk about RUNNING a game. Sure, the rules are simple, but the combat tactics become a whole new ballgame for us DM’s.

But those simple rule changes do make life a hell of a lot easier. During our first game, my intrepid game designer buddy decided to throw a monkey wrench into the works by having his character dive under a table and kick it out from under two guys fighting on top of it. He smiled devilishly, looked at me and asked “How are you gonna rule that…DM?” I glanced at the book for a moment and realized “Strength check against their reflexes.” Huh. He shook his head. Made sense. He made the attack, hit the numbers and all of a sudden he had two opponents prone on the floor. The rules are so straight forward now, on the fly decisions are total cake.

And when slightly more complicated rule calls come into play, don’t worry. The way they’ve set up the rule chapters are simple, clear and pure genius. Everything in the combat chapter is alphabetized. You need the grappling rules? Turn to the G’s. How about Charging? C. And once you’re there, you’ll find that all the major rules are listed as bullet points. Any and every instance for a rule is listed separately in its own bullet point and there aren’t any more of those infamous important rules buried at the end of a paragraph somewhere in the middle of chapter 9.

The biggest change you’re going to notice is that combats are RADICALLY different than they ever have been. The idea of the single, lone monster fight is almost entirely gone. 4E is about mobs. It’s about the Gnoll hunter traveling with two Gnoll warriors and 3 hyenas. It’s about Goblins on Worg-back with a spellcaster bringing up the rear. It’s about ambushes and strange locations. It’s as much about how you’re fighting as it is what you’re fighting. Setting up the fights mechanically is a breeze. Every monster level has an XP total and there’s a simple chart that tells you what XP an encounter of a party size of X level equals. For example a 7th level party of four characters is 1200 experience points. A standard 7th level monster is 300 XP. 4 monsters of the same level equal a standard challenge for the party.

But the biggest revolution is game design for 4E is the fact that the monsters scale PERFECTLY. And so do the PCs. The amount of damage they deal and can take moves up appropriately so multiple monsters of a lower level is EQUAL in damage output and the amount it can take as a single monster of a higher level. A level 1 monster is 100XP. So 12 level 1 monsters would make a suitable encounter for a 7th level party. And yes, for those of you thinking ahead of me, this means it is very simple to mix monsters of different levels. That same party would be equally matched by a level 9 monster (400XP) and 4 level 5 monsters (200XP each.) Doing the MATH of each encounter takes seconds. The challenging part becomes being creative. How exactly will you mix and match your monsters, how will they interact together and where will you place the encounter to make it easier or tougher than the straight numbers would intimate. That right there is where things get really fun for the 4E Dungeon Master. The new rule set allows you to be positively devious without risking the dreaded TPK (total party kill.) 4E rewards the inventive DM by giving him a wide range creatures with a large range of abilities and combat roles, then turns him loose to try and find the nastiest, most dastardly ways to harass his players.

But don’t get too cocky there, Jeeves. The players have all sorts of new tools and tactics to dismantle even the cleverest of traps. Rangers SUCK. Not in the 3.x way in which they’re silly and underpowered. As a DM, you will learn to hate them because with a well placed shot they can drop your back field controller before he gets a chance to really harass your players. The days of taking it easy on the caster or ranged fighter are done and gone. You need to learn quickly how to put pressure on the party’s back field fighters or else you will watch encounter after encounter go down the same way as the tank draws fire while the healer stands him up (while doing damage herself) and the ranger/wizard blasts key opponents out of the picture. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. No. Simple, straight forward encounters comprised of four of the same monster are the way to ruin. The system may encourage complicated tactics and encounters…but clever players will simply require them.

And at the same time, character death isn’t as easy as it used to be. Level 1 characters are front loaded with hit points and abilities, so the old accidental crit by the goblin archer won’t actually kill a player. It’s a slight bit tougher than that now. And it becomes even tougher if there’s a cleric in the group. A strong, smart healer can stand up near death characters several times before they actually risk permanent death. This is going to be a big change for some folks, as the weekly “Who do we have to pay to get raised this week” becomes much less frequent (until Epic, when pretty much everyone can Res for free, on a daily basis. You get abilities that let you do cool things when you die. Swear to Pelor. Epic is weird.)

XP works a lot differently now too. EVERYTHING you do can pretty much get you XP. The big change is that Social Encounters will net you xp. Traps and puzzles are XP based rather than just CRs. And taking a tip from WoW, there are even QUEST REWARDS now. The DMG even includes suggestions on how PC’s can instigate their own quests. These are no longer vague rule suggestions – but are instead hard and fast rules that allow you to really control the rate of level progression without feeling like you’re just lumping XP on the PC’s. At the same time, the new system allows you to take the players from one level to the next without ever having to swing a sword. Not that you’d necessarily want to, but all of a sudden courtly intrigue and puzzle quest heavy campaigns are just as viable XP wise as straight hack and slash. And it’s all based on the same simple mechanics.

And nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, takes away XP anymore. No more level loss. No more XP to fuel abilities or make magic items. Nothing. In fact the book encourages you to award XP to absent players, just so everyone always has the same amount and is playing at the same level. I’ve been doing this, and the players love it. That lame idea of reward for attendance gets outweighed by the reward of everyone being equally useful. Besides, loot for attendance works just as well.

Another great aspect of 4E is the new abilities versus feats delineation. Abilities are something that the player can do ACTIVELY. This includes casting a fireball, using a tricky bow shot or healing another character. Feats on the other hand tend to modify your stats or affect what you can do PASSIVELY. The abilities are all very carefully set up with level dependant damage and scaling. You no longer have the ability to pick and choose from a number of prestige classes (thus no stacking weird combinations of class abilities), and since bonus stacking is very simple and easy these days, the chances of nasty, disgusting, broken combos is going to take a LOT of future bonehead game design and a lot of work on the part of the players. There are plenty of ways to optimize your characters – but straight up broken combos are going to become a thing of the past.

One of the things the rules stress in the DMG is to get used to saying “YES” to players. Let them try weird things and how you should try to find ways to allow it. And the ruleset seems to allow it while remaining incredibly stable. Stable really is the best way to describe it. We’ve spent four months trying to break it and we can’t. There have been a few iterations of rule interpretations that have created oddities, but the playtesting did an incredible job of tweaking those down to make sense. Hell, there was an interpretation of Stealth early on that allowed you to use another player to hide, then jump out and gain COMBAT ADVANTAGE (the 4E version of catching a character flat footed.) This led to a series of comments (and jokes) about a Halfling Rogue in the fighters backpack and ultimately led to a note from the lead developer that read “It shouldn’t work like that. We’ll fix it.” They did.

Remember all that simplicity stuff from part 1 of the review. As a DM you’re about to see why they had to make the rules so simple. It’s because your toolbox just got a lot bigger. And any more complicated and it just wouldn’t work. The great thing is that most of your preparation doesn’t involve books and math. It involves brainstorming and figuring out how to make encounters unique, fun and, yes, devilishly effective.

Then of course you have to figure out loot. Who doesn’t love loot? Well, in 4E there’s a hell of a lot less of it. It also doesn’t affect a lot of the things it used to. But it is still as important as ever. The loot rules pretty much give players a new magic item every level. And the gear gives you new abilities, protection from abilities or simply modifies your attacks or defenses. There are no more stat bump items, nor are you expected to have magic loot at certain levels. The result is a system that allows low or no magic campaigns without a lot of heartache or rule tweaking. Magic items all do COOL things. Armor doesn’t just protect you, it also gives you things to do in combat. Items you wear give you options, not bumps. And the abilities things grant make them useful for levels beyond what loot used to. There are items I can imagine being just as useful at level 20 as it was at level 4. The overall result of all of these loot changes is a system more about fantasy, character and story than it is about Min/Maxing. There’s a lot more “This is the cloak given to me by Queen Soandso and a lot less “Dude, why are you still wearing that +2 Periapt of Wisdom. You’re level 12 now.”

Oh yeah. And there’s no such thing as a magic item shop anymore. Which is fine, because they’ve finally made Crafting rules that actually make sense and don’t require calculus or the loss of XP. If you want a certain magic item, learn how to make it, and spend the gold to make it. Crafting magic items is what the gold cost is for now a days.

All in all, the game plays and runs very differently than before. It still has that classic D&D feel, but your focus as a game runner really is going in new and exciting directions. You’ll send most of your time dreaming things up rather than tallying things up. And it makes all the difference.

Tune in tomorrow for the third and final installment of this review in which I talk about the new monster manual, how monster work and my few (nit picky) gripes about the new system.

Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

Massawyrm

Rutee
2008-02-29, 09:01 AM
Point. I don't play Solar games though. Too much phenominal cosmic power for my tastes. I am in a Dragonblood game, and I could easily see my necromancer being about 1st level 4E PC in power level. Can't say for certain, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Anything that casts Sorcery is automatically at level 15 DnD, at minimum. Sorry. A 'level 1' is an Extra; 3 Health Levels. Exalted have 7, minimum, and Ox Body just piles on more.


Heh, heh. Different strokes for different folks.

Awesomeness is, of course, all relative to the foes your facing. For instance:

AD&D Orcs: 14+ to hit AC 15 (Mail Armour), 1-8 Damage (2-16 Damage, if you're using the Optional 2e Critical Hit Rule - Hint: don't)

D20 Orcs: 11+ to hit AC 15 (Mail Armour), 2-12 Damage (4-24 points on a Critical)

AD&D Level 1 Fighter: 10-14 Hit Points (unless you're really hardcore and make them roll their first Hit Die).

D20 Level 1 Fighter: 10-14 Hit Points

If I want to play a high powered game that resembles D&D, I might consider 4e.
It's got very little to do with this crunch, and a whole hell of a lot more to do with what you can do as a character, action-wise. Killing full attacks, especially, makes mobility again a possibility, since you're no longer penalized for choosing to move. Since movement isn't a penalty anymore, you have lots more options in the delivery.

Matthew
2008-02-29, 09:07 AM
Wow, this guy seems to have some very odd impressions of D20. I'm pretty sure Experience Point for Quests was not a WoW innovation.



It's got very little to do with this crunch, and a whole hell of a lot more to do with what you can do as a character, action-wise. Killing full attacks, especially, makes mobility again a possibility, since you're no longer penalized for choosing to move. Since movement isn't a penalty anymore, you have lots more options in the delivery.

I can't agree with that; it does have plenty to do with the Math. That's why there has been all this talk about 'sweet spots' and math for 4e. That's why they're gushing about how the math works out and that lucky crits from Goblins won't kill your character.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-02-29, 09:08 AM
Oh, no, it's not. But Quest XP is a trademark of MMORPG's.

This should quiet down the complaints. If tomorrow the nitpicks and gripes are rediculous, people will be allowed to criticise as much as they want, but 'till then, I suggest waiting and discussing the good things of the enw article.

SamTheCleric
2008-02-29, 09:10 AM
I do like the XP system taking over the CR system... It will make much more sense.

And... I want to play a ranger. :smallbiggrin:

Rutee
2008-02-29, 09:10 AM
Social Encounters are new though. And yeah, Quest Exp was in almost every single MMO since EQ, to my knowledge.


I can't agree with that; it does have plenty to do with the Math. That's why there has been all this talk about 'sweet spots' and math for 4e. That's why they're gushing about how the math works out and that lucky crits from Goblins won't kill your character
Not being OHKO bait is part of it, but it's not the lion's share of what I'm referring to. Red Shirts not being able to one-shot you is only an aspect of why 4e characters get to be more awesome, as far as I'm concerned.

JBento
2008-02-29, 09:13 AM
Apparently, he still has some gripes with the system - but either way, none of it matters. He seems convinced that in 3.XE you could afford to leave the CASTER be while focusing on the front-liners, so I'll take his opinion with a few seas of salt...

Unless the characters he's talking about are a front-liner CoDzilla and a Bard caster :smallwink:

Azerian Kelimon
2008-02-29, 09:14 AM
Hey, didn't social encounter rewards first appear on Exalted? My RPG-History-Fu is weak right now, but I believe they were there first.

Starbuck_II
2008-02-29, 09:14 AM
I could be wrong since I don't have the books with me, but I believe that tied up=/=helpless. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Actually, in the PHB page 309, helpless says bound (tied up so to speak) is helpless too. Use rope says tying someone up is bound under title Bind in the skill section.
Thus, no evasion while tied up.

I like the review part 2. Exp for ralking parts and how magic items aren't bonuses, but extra options. Though, armor I bet still gives bonuses (+'s to AC).

Matthew
2008-02-29, 09:15 AM
Social Encounters are new though. And yeah, Quest Exp was in almost every single MMO since EQ, to my knowledge.

It's also in the 1989 AD&D DMG, D20 and many other RPGs, which is why I find it odd that it's being touted as an innovation borrowed from WoW. The table incident also seems like an odd one to claim innovation for, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what the mechanic he is referring to is before we can compare it across editions.



Not being OHKO bait is part of it, but it's not the lion's share of what I'm referring to. Red Shirts not being able to one-shot you is only an aspect of why 4e characters get to be more awesome, as far as I'm concerned.
Sure, the math of Orcs versus Fighters isn't the be all and end all, it was just one example of how the math has changed between editions. Movement rates, action types, time keeping and all sorts of other things have also changed. It's all math, though, and it's all related to the same thing, which is PC power relative to Monster power.

Rutee
2008-02-29, 09:15 AM
Hey, didn't social encounter rewards first appear on Exalted? My RPG-History-Fu is weak right now, but I believe they were there first.

What, as an actual codified system with expanded on rules? To my knowledge. A lot of games have had social skills though, so it wouldn't surprise me if it predates Exalted.



Sure, the math of Orcs versus Fighters isn't the be all and end all, it was just one example of how the math has changed between editions. Movement rates, action types, time keeping and all sorts of other things have also changed. It's all math, though, and it's all related to the same thing, which is PC power relative to Monster power.
You're not listening to me. I don't really care about PC power relative to monster power. I got what I really, really needed, and that's "PCs aren't OHKO bait". It's more about what you as a PC can do, period. Especially mobility, which is an advantage that, to our knowledge, has been extended just as much to monsters.

Saph
2008-02-29, 09:17 AM
The thing is, I do like the individual changes this guy is describing, but the whole review is so over-the-top OMGITSAMAZINGYOUMUSTALLBUYITNOW that I can't take him seriously. I just don't like marketing pitches.

- Saph

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-29, 09:25 AM
But those simple rule changes do make life a hell of a lot easier. During our first game, my intrepid game designer buddy decided to throw a monkey wrench into the works by having his character dive under a table and kick it out from under two guys fighting on top of it. He smiled devilishly, looked at me and asked “How are you gonna rule that…DM?” I glanced at the book for a moment and realized “Strength check against their reflexes.” Huh. He shook his head. Made sense. He made the attack, hit the numbers and all of a sudden he had two opponents prone on the floor. The rules are so straight forward now, on the fly decisions are total cake.

Interesting...


And when slightly more complicated rule calls come into play, don’t worry. The way they’ve set up the rule chapters are simple, clear and pure genius. Everything in the combat chapter is alphabetized. You need the grappling rules? Turn to the G’s. How about Charging? C. And once you’re there, you’ll find that all the major rules are listed as bullet points. Any and every instance for a rule is listed separately in its own bullet point and there aren’t any more of those infamous important rules buried at the end of a paragraph somewhere in the middle of chapter 9.

This is probably the single best thing I have heard. A bunch of this 4e stuff is spiffy, but Jeebus... if 1e had been written like that, I think we might all still be playing that. :smalltongue:


The biggest change you’re going to notice is that combats are RADICALLY different than they ever have been. The idea of the single, lone monster fight is almost entirely gone. 4E is about mobs. It’s about the Gnoll hunter traveling with two Gnoll warriors and 3 hyenas. It’s about Goblins on Worg-back with a spellcaster bringing up the rear. It’s about ambushes and strange locations. It’s as much about how you’re fighting as it is what you’re fighting. Setting up the fights mechanically is a breeze. Every monster level has an XP total and there’s a simple chart that tells you what XP an encounter of a party size of X level equals. For example a 7th level party of four characters is 1200 experience points. A standard 7th level monster is 300 XP. 4 monsters of the same level equal a standard challenge for the party.

Again, spiffy, but we knew this. Really, I dunno... I mean, I like AICN, but this really does sound a lot like a marketing ploy..... even if he has been working in secret and say the first post yesterday was just pent up enthusiasm of several months finally being able to be gushed out all at once.... wouldn't he have read replys and posts and for that matter, read the info that has been released up to this point and know that this info has been released already? I've got a bad feeling about this drop....


But the biggest revolution is game design for 4E is the fact that the monsters scale PERFECTLY. And so do the PCs. The amount of damage they deal and can take moves up appropriately so multiple monsters of a lower level is EQUAL in damage output and the amount it can take as a single monster of a higher level. A level 1 monster is 100XP. So 12 level 1 monsters would make a suitable encounter for a 7th level party. And yes, for those of you thinking ahead of me, this means it is very simple to mix monsters of different levels. That same party would be equally matched by a level 9 monster (400XP) and 4 level 5 monsters (200XP each.) Doing the MATH of each encounter takes seconds. The challenging part becomes being creative. How exactly will you mix and match your monsters, how will they interact together and where will you place the encounter to make it easier or tougher than the straight numbers would intimate. That right there is where things get really fun for the 4E Dungeon Master. The new rule set allows you to be positively devious without risking the dreaded TPK (total party kill.) 4E rewards the inventive DM by giving him a wide range creatures with a large range of abilities and combat roles, then turns him loose to try and find the nastiest, most dastardly ways to harass his players.

But don’t get too cocky there, Jeeves. The players have all sorts of new tools and tactics to dismantle even the cleverest of traps. Rangers SUCK. Not in the 3.x way in which they’re silly and underpowered. As a DM, you will learn to hate them because with a well placed shot they can drop your back field controller before he gets a chance to really harass your players. The days of taking it easy on the caster or ranged fighter are done and gone. You need to learn quickly how to put pressure on the party’s back field fighters or else you will watch encounter after encounter go down the same way as the tank draws fire while the healer stands him up (while doing damage herself) and the ranger/wizard blasts key opponents out of the picture. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. No. Simple, straight forward encounters comprised of four of the same monster are the way to ruin. The system may encourage complicated tactics and encounters…but clever players will simply require them.

And at the same time, character death isn’t as easy as it used to be. Level 1 characters are front loaded with hit points and abilities, so the old accidental crit by the goblin archer won’t actually kill a player. It’s a slight bit tougher than that now. And it becomes even tougher if there’s a cleric in the group. A strong, smart healer can stand up near death characters several times before they actually risk permanent death. This is going to be a big change for some folks, as the weekly “Who do we have to pay to get raised this week” becomes much less frequent (until Epic, when pretty much everyone can Res for free, on a daily basis. You get abilities that let you do cool things when you die. Swear to Pelor. Epic is weird.)

Rez for free? WTF? Meh. Might as well stop pretending at that level of play it is anything but an inconveniant speedbump anyway....


XP works a lot differently now too. EVERYTHING you do can pretty much get you XP. The big change is that Social Encounters will net you xp. Traps and puzzles are XP based rather than just CRs. And taking a tip from WoW, there are even QUEST REWARDS now. The DMG even includes suggestions on how PC’s can instigate their own quests. These are no longer vague rule suggestions – but are instead hard and fast rules that allow you to really control the rate of level progression without feeling like you’re just lumping XP on the PC’s. At the same time, the new system allows you to take the players from one level to the next without ever having to swing a sword. Not that you’d necessarily want to, but all of a sudden courtly intrigue and puzzle quest heavy campaigns are just as viable XP wise as straight hack and slash. And it’s all based on the same simple mechanics.

... I dunno. My indifference is overwhelming at this point. On the one hand it sounds awesome to run an actual, viable no combat campaign that offers real tangible, achievable goals to the PCs and rewards them appropriately on the other, this just seems, weird. I really need to see the rules. Today. Like, five minutes ago.


And nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, takes away XP anymore. No more level loss. No more XP to fuel abilities or make magic items. Nothing. In fact the book encourages you to award XP to absent players, just so everyone always has the same amount and is playing at the same level. I’ve been doing this, and the players love it. That lame idea of reward for attendance gets outweighed by the reward of everyone being equally useful. Besides, loot for attendance works just as well.

... Meh.. we usually just NPC or have someone double up if there is a missing player.


Another great aspect of 4E is the new abilities versus feats delineation. Abilities are something that the player can do ACTIVELY. This includes casting a fireball, using a tricky bow shot or healing another character. Feats on the other hand tend to modify your stats or affect what you can do PASSIVELY. The abilities are all very carefully set up with level dependant damage and scaling. You no longer have the ability to pick and choose from a number of prestige classes (thus no stacking weird combinations of class abilities), and since bonus stacking is very simple and easy these days, the chances of nasty, disgusting, broken combos is going to take a LOT of future bonehead game design and a lot of work on the part of the players. There are plenty of ways to optimize your characters – but straight up broken combos are going to become a thing of the past.

Again, neutrality overwhelms me. On the one hand, I am a power-gaming munchkin who loves making utterly broken characters. On the other, I hate it when I DM and people do that, plus CO is essentially part of what ruined 3e.

.....SNIP.....


Then of course you have to figure out loot. Who doesn’t love loot? Well, in 4E there’s a hell of a lot less of it. It also doesn’t affect a lot of the things it used to. But it is still as important as ever. The loot rules pretty much give players a new magic item every level. And the gear gives you new abilities, protection from abilities or simply modifies your attacks or defenses. There are no more stat bump items, nor are you expected to have magic loot at certain levels. The result is a system that allows low or no magic campaigns without a lot of heartache or rule tweaking. Magic items all do COOL things. Armor doesn’t just protect you, it also gives you things to do in combat. Items you wear give you options, not bumps. And the abilities things grant make them useful for levels beyond what loot used to. There are items I can imagine being just as useful at level 20 as it was at level 4. The overall result of all of these loot changes is a system more about fantasy, character and story than it is about Min/Maxing. There’s a lot more “This is the cloak given to me by Queen Soandso and a lot less “Dude, why are you still wearing that +2 Periapt of Wisdom. You’re level 12 now.”

I also find this semi-encouraging. Though I see a lot of my players crying about wanting more loot.


Oh yeah. And there’s no such thing as a magic item shop anymore. Which is fine, because they’ve finally made Crafting rules that actually make sense and don’t require calculus or the loss of XP. If you want a certain magic item, learn how to make it, and spend the gold to make it. Crafting magic items is what the gold cost is for now a days.

Honestly it wasn't that hard to do the math... well at least for me... for some of my players... still... I like the change, overall.


All in all, the game plays and runs very differently than before. It still has that classic D&D feel, but your focus as a game runner really is going in new and exciting directions. You’ll send most of your time dreaming things up rather than tallying things up. And it makes all the difference.

Also sounds good...


Tune in tomorrow for the third and final installment of this review in which I talk about the new monster manual, how monster work and my few (nit picky) gripes about the new system.

So he does have gripes then. Also encouraging.

Matthew
2008-02-29, 09:26 AM
You're not listening to me. I don't really care about PC power relative to monster power. I got what I really, really needed, and that's "PCs aren't OHKO bait". It's more about what you as a PC can do, period. Especially mobility, which is an advantage that, to our knowledge, has been extended just as much to monsters.

Well, I am reading what you have written. I just apparently don't understand what you're on about. In what way is the 'awesomeness' of a PC not expressed mathematically in a game? And what the hell is OHKO?

Izar Goldbranch
2008-02-29, 09:26 AM
Hey, didn't social encounter rewards first appear on Exalted? My RPG-History-Fu is weak right now, but I believe they were there first.


I'm just happy they're putting actual guidelines in the rules. One of the things that made social encounters so difficult in 3.x was that you really didn't have a scale to go by in figuring out how much XP each social encounter was worth, so it was hard to incorporate into a game and make it worthwhile.

I'm really happy they're putting it down on paper.

Rad
2008-02-29, 09:33 AM
I'll just pick the treasure paragraph. I think everybody read things they liked in it.
#1:

The result is a system that allows low or no magic campaigns without a lot of heartache or rule tweaking.

But it is still as important as ever.
#2:


...nor are you expected to have magic loot at certain levels.

The loot rules pretty much give players a new magic item every level.

#3:

It also doesn’t affect a lot of the things it used to.

And the gear gives you new abilities, protection from abilities or simply modifies your attacks or defenses.

Of course I was bound to like something in there! :smallamused:

Azerian Kelimon
2008-02-29, 09:34 AM
Let's just wait 'till tomorrow before we complain. I think 4e is going to be a "definitive" edition, like 1e and 2e, which ran for a LONG while, but if the complaints are rediculous idiocy, I'm going to go a LOT more skeptical.

Oh, and this review reminds me of something. (http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/)

Warning: Do not check that link. It is Cthulhu in disguise.

Rutee
2008-02-29, 09:37 AM
Well, I am reading what you have written. I just apparently don't understand what you're on about. In what way is the 'awesomeness' of a PC not expressed mathematically in game?

I was more talking about how it's not about PCs vs. NPCs. You seem to have placed everything under 'math', even if it's only loosely math, so.

Human Paragon 3
2008-02-29, 09:55 AM
Wizards seems to want to make Fourth edition better at telling stories (by dropping the priority of simulationist play significantly, focusing the game on the PC's, making plot devices into real plot devices instead of just spells, etc), but their changes seem to be limiting the scope of story the system can readily tell.

Point 1: A system better-equipped to tell stories is a huge plus. DnD is a game, but it is a colaborative story-telling game, and the better the story, the better the game experience, all else being equail

Point 2: If you want life or death situations every combat where the PCs have to constantly struggle to survive... make the monsters harder. Use level 2 monters instead of level 1 monsters. The damage output will scale, and they'll be able to drop the PCs in one or two shots like you seem to want. But let me tell you: My 4th level barbarian died on saturday from two hits from an overmatched monster. That combat wasn't particularly fun.

warmachine
2008-02-29, 10:02 AM
Parts 1 and 2 seem a little to "Ra! Ra! Ra!". I distrust people like that. However, resting because the wizard is short of spells is an annoyance of 3e. And so is single monster encounters. So is the necessity to have a Cleric. So 4e is looking to be worth learning.

Let's hope the multiclassing isn't as damaged as people say it is.

Rutee
2008-02-29, 10:06 AM
Oh, that was one thing that made me go :smallconfused:
Single Monster encounters better not be dead.. I was under the distinct impression that they were finding ways around the Action Penalty, rather then giving up on it.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-02-29, 10:12 AM
Yeah, single mob encounters are probably now elites. Now, they actually ARE acknowledged to be "Kill you dead, have to dump all the ammo on this sucker just to scrape him" battles. The Tarrasque is going to be definetely an elite, for example.

JBento
2008-02-29, 10:13 AM
From what I gather, they're not dead, but they're FAAAAAAR rarer. Only memorable monsters, i.e., those of Elite status (such as dragons) will be balanced for single-monster encounters, and even then not all Elites. The Pit Fiend is obviously not meant to be used as a single monster, and I seem to remember an article featuring the party vs. 2 bulettes. OTOH, I also remember one featuring the party vs. a single dragon. :smallsmile:

Duke of URL
2008-02-29, 10:29 AM
The way they’ve set up the rule chapters are simple, clear and pure genius. Everything in the combat chapter is alphabetized. You need the grappling rules? Turn to the G’s. How about Charging? C. And once you’re there, you’ll find that all the major rules are listed as bullet points. Any and every instance for a rule is listed separately in its own bullet point and there aren’t any more of those infamous important rules buried at the end of a paragraph somewhere in the middle of chapter 9.

This is long overdue, but hardly revolutionary or awe-inspiring.



it is very simple to mix monsters of different levels. That same party would be equally matched by a level 9 monster (400XP) and 4 level 5 monsters (200XP each.) Doing the MATH of each encounter takes seconds. The challenging part becomes being creative. How exactly will you mix and match your monsters, how will they interact together and where will you place the encounter to make it easier or tougher than the straight numbers would intimate.

If true, this would be good. It also alleviates the problem of "farming" low-level monsters for XP with set XP values.


XP works a lot differently now too. EVERYTHING you do can pretty much get you XP. The big change is that Social Encounters will net you xp. Traps and puzzles are XP based rather than just CRs. And taking a tip from WoW, there are even QUEST REWARDS now. The DMG even includes suggestions on how PC’s can instigate their own quests. These are no longer vague rule suggestions – but are instead hard and fast rules that allow you to really control the rate of level progression without feeling like you’re just lumping XP on the PC’s. At the same time, the new system allows you to take the players from one level to the next without ever having to swing a sword. Not that you’d necessarily want to, but all of a sudden courtly intrigue and puzzle quest heavy campaigns are just as viable XP wise as straight hack and slash. And it’s all based on the same simple mechanics.

So, they've codified what any capable DM has already done on his own, and to his own tastes. I imagine this will be one of the first stops for house-ruling.


And nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, takes away XP anymore. No more level loss. No more XP to fuel abilities or make magic items.

About freaking time.


Another great aspect of 4E is the new abilities versus feats delineation. Abilities are something that the player can do ACTIVELY. This includes casting a fireball, using a tricky bow shot or healing another character. Feats on the other hand tend to modify your stats or affect what you can do PASSIVELY.

Demonstrably false from the sample character sheets released -- there are feats that grant active abilities too.


The abilities are all very carefully set up with level dependant damage and scaling.

Again, about freaking time. If true.


Then of course you have to figure out loot. Who doesn’t love loot? Well, in 4E there’s a hell of a lot less of it. It also doesn’t affect a lot of the things it used to. But it is still as important as ever. The loot rules pretty much give players a new magic item every level. And the gear gives you new abilities, protection from abilities or simply modifies your attacks or defenses. There are no more stat bump items, nor are you expected to have magic loot at certain levels.

Did he read this before posting? The rules give an item per player per level, but at the same time you're not expected to have it? This also completely counters earlier comments from the designers that the default game will be balanced around the characters having access to particular equipment at particular level ranges.

Kioran
2008-02-29, 10:36 AM
Now, I don't mind spreading it around to more classes ('course, it isn't fully cleric exclusive in 3.5), but giving healing abilities to everyone strikes me the wrong way. Of course, we don't have the full rules, but it appears that the martial classes will be getting healing in the form of "healing surges," which I can only assume are supposed to be some sort of adrenaline-fueled "second wind" mechanic. If sheer adrenaline can heal you substantially enough that you don't require a medic at all, something's rotten in the state of Denmark.

Hmmm - yes, on the one hand I dislike full healing without magical intervention. But something akin to the Monk´s Wholeness of body seems okay - makes you a bit tougher/makes you go on for a while. I´m not saying the loss of cleric shouldn´t sting, I just think a normal party shouldn´t be out for half a week after a single fight or two or burning off half the magic item store.

A bit of healing should be available, something that can make players take lots of damage - for a while.

However, I do agree that HP loss actually represents wounds, and that someone who has been reduced to only a few of them should require supernatural aid, and more than just pep-talk.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-02-29, 10:37 AM
What he probably means is: Flight is more or less a requirement in high levels in 3.5, as is an appropiately enchanted weapon. Now, you are expected to count with nifty ADVANTAGES at high levels, but they won't be required.

BTW, could you list the active feats? I've not seen any.

Morty
2008-02-29, 10:43 AM
Once more, interesting information about very good things, but the praising, awe-dripping tone makes this artice hard to take seriously. I do like forcus on group combat and the fact that now low-level monsters can challenge high-level parties, and less reliance on magic toys is great. However, how can he say that "monsters scale perfectly" and make other definite claims? He played it for one or two days.

Duke of URL
2008-02-29, 10:44 AM
BTW, could you list the active feats? I've not seen any.

Take a look at the Cleric sheet - Chanel Divinity: Power of Amaunator. It's listed as a feat power, and it is most definitely not a passive ability.

Edit: I may be mistaken on that -- it does require an action, but a free action and it is only triggered on specific conditions. So you could call it passive in some regards. However, it is selectively used (active) and takes the place of other abilities that could be actively used in the same encounter.

SamTheCleric
2008-02-29, 10:44 AM
Um, he's been playing for 4 months.

(per the original article)

Zincorium
2008-02-29, 10:47 AM
Feats that have been shown so far:

Skill training: Stealth
Action surge (+3 to attacks on actions gained from an action point)
Dwarven weapon training

These all seem to be passive effects. If you can link to another character sheet with a feat that is active, Duke, I'll happily change my mind.

But I think you may have confused feats with exploits or powers.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-02-29, 10:48 AM
If it says Feat POWER, then there's no point even arguing this. Could you link me to the sheets so I can see it by myself.

Duke of URL
2008-02-29, 10:51 AM
http://picasaweb.google.com/gertiebarden/4eCharacterSheets/photo#5172236878880390162

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-29, 10:53 AM
The feat itself is still technically passive though...

Azerian Kelimon
2008-02-29, 10:57 AM
Looks like a power to me. In my opinion, it's a feat augmented power.

Zincorium
2008-02-29, 10:59 AM
Call me crazy, but it looks like the cleric took a feat to gain said power. The power is not passive, the feat appears to simply allow access.

Duke of URL
2008-02-29, 10:59 AM
I disagree. I can see how it resembles a passive feat, but it still requires a specific choice to use it, can only be used once per encounter, and prevents the use of other Channel Divinity powers for the encounter (or more likely, burns up one use of Channel Divinity -- I imagine that additional uses per encounter might be added as it levels up).

A truly passive feat can basically be figured into a set general or situational bonus.

SamTheCleric
2008-02-29, 11:05 AM
Maybe the feat is "Extra Encounter Power from the following list" or something. Not specifically a feat power... but a feat that lets you pick an additional power.

JBento
2008-02-29, 11:07 AM
From what I gather:

A regular Cleric can, once per encounter, use either CD: Turn Undead or CD: Divine Fortune. A feat will allow them a third option, the aforementioned CD: Power of Amaunator.

I guess cases can be made for ir being either a passive feat or an active one...

Indon
2008-02-29, 11:28 AM
So, significant things I gleaned from this new article:

-Character advancement is largely linear - this means that player option synergy is practically nonexistent, and is not meant to ever exist (as it'd break this system). Maybe it'll only apply to NPC's who can't take PC levels?
-Player innovation is much less significant, if you take the advice of the books anyway. At best, an innovative trick could simulate a power that a character doesn't happen to have.
-Encounters will be easy unless played with much more tactical intricacy. While this was true in 3'rd edition, it seems much more evident in this version - likely one of the things the game was built around. No longer will a Dragon played under its' potential be a possible threat to a group.
-The rules are written better. Yay!
-No longer are magic items purchased at-will, but magic item crafting may end up doing the same thing.

Rachel Lorelei
2008-02-29, 11:34 AM
-No longer are magic items purchased at-will, but magic item crafting may end up doing the same thing.

Oh, I *like* this. Making item creation easy for PCs is going to give them the items they want just like they were Magic-Supermart-Browsing the way they so often are assumed to do in 3.5, but without the need for Magic Supermart.


3.5 dragons weren't that big a deal for a tactical 3.5 group unless the dragons were tactically played, either. Somehow, I don't think 4E dragon encounters will ever be the cakewalk 3.5 dragon encounters occasionally were. ("It saves... it saves... oh, it fails." or "Okay, I move within 30 feet and hit it with an arcane reach Irresistible Dance.")

nepphi
2008-02-29, 12:21 PM
You're nitpicking, Duke.

He said feats tend to be passive. Not that they universally are. So it's not demonstrably false, it's a generalized statement or rule of thumb that leaves room for exceptions. So unless you can demonstrate that the majority of feats mentioned are active instead of passive, lighten it up a bit, eh?

Indon
2008-02-29, 12:38 PM
Oh, I *like* this. Making item creation easy for PCs is going to give them the items they want just like they were Magic-Supermart-Browsing the way they so often are assumed to do in 3.5, but without the need for Magic Supermart.
If that _is_ how it works, I won't like it. I didn't like the consequences of MagicMart (in terms of character customization) more than I didn't like the implications.


3.5 dragons weren't that big a deal for a tactical 3.5 group unless the dragons were tactically played, either. Somehow, I don't think 4E dragon encounters will ever be the cakewalk 3.5 dragon encounters occasionally were. ("It saves... it saves... oh, it fails." or "Okay, I move within 30 feet and hit it with an arcane reach Irresistible Dance.")

A highly mechanically effective 3.5 group killed about anything in one round anyway, dragon or no, as a consequence of the high-lethality, offensive-oriented combat structure. I meant against a _realistic_ group the like of which I'd be likely to play in, where the CR system didn't blatantly break down.

horseboy
2008-02-29, 01:07 PM
Okay, alphabetized rules is a VERY GOOD thing. But seriously,
And taking a tip from WoW, there are even QUEST REWARDS now.It's painfully obvious this guy has never played anything other than 3.5. It's too bad that D&D is only catching up this edition and not pushing forward. :smallfrown:

Illiterate Scribe
2008-02-29, 01:09 PM
What's the point of that quote? I really don't get what you're trying to say.

Basically, this isn't the first time that Ain't it Cool News has been accused of being a viral mouthpiece,

ShadowSiege
2008-02-29, 02:18 PM
While I'm a bit leery of his (perhaps) exaggerated enthusiasm, I have to break this cynical talk for a moment. Has anyone considered that it is actually that good of a game? Every once in a while, something comes out that is as awesome as the hype. Maybe 4e will indeed descend from heaven, part the Red Sea and lead us to the Promised Land of Milk and Honey. Or, on a less epic scale, it'll be a better version of the game we know and sometimes love.

Part of the problem with hype is that the product may not live up to it, and then you have destroyed your credibility. An excellent example of this in the (video) games industry is Peter Molyneaux, creator of Black and White, Fable, and other ridiculously overhyped games that failed to live up to expectations. He blew his cred and now has to earn it back while avoiding the pitfall that lead him there in the first place. It doesn't look like he's learned his lesson though, from what I've heard of Fable 2 and the publisher having to reign him in when it comes to his claims.

Matthew
2008-02-29, 02:23 PM
A short negative blurb from a self described playtester of 4e can be found here: Hawkwinter (http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?mforum=trolllordgames&t=4349&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15&mforum=trolllordgames)

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-29, 02:32 PM
A short negative blurb from a self described playtester of 4e can be found here: Hawkwinter (http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?mforum=trolllordgames&t=4349&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15&mforum=trolllordgames)

Meh - I found his commentary to be somewhat lackluster and really, almost less believeable (if possible) than Massawyrm. Here he is, a handful of posts on a message board for a company that makes a competing system (sort of) who then sums up with a bit about how lucky he is that said game is out there...

That's not to say he is a shill, just that I definately find it suspect. Also, assuming it is all true, I really don't even see the negative aspects of what he is talking about. It seems to be "Oh no, characters are designed for combat and ease of play" and that leads him to "No more roleplaying in D&D ever." Having a battlemap and minis does not replace role-playing. Having combat does not replace storytelling and character growth. Those are all things you still *can* do. Just that they seem to have made the part where you kick in the front door and start swinging sharp objects go a lot faster.

EDIT: Just finished reading that whole thread. Wow. What a bunch of elitist ****s. They could very well be saying "Movable printed type? The serfs must not learn of this!"

Matthew
2008-02-29, 02:42 PM
Certainly, and I'm not saying he's more credible than any other reviewer (indeed, as a random poster, he is obviously less so). What is interesting is that he is not critical of the mechanics (which could be an indication that he doesn't know them), but rather of the style of play.

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-29, 02:48 PM
Certainly, and I'm not saying he's more credible than any other reviewer (indeed, as a random poster, he is obviously less so). What is interesting is that he is not critical of the mechanics (which could be an indication that he doesn't know them), but rather of the style of play.

That's what I mean though. He apparently disliked his DM's campaign, not the rules governing it, not in so many words of course, but it just looks like baseless hate.

A system is a system and a campaign is a campaign. We got by and played 1e, 2e and 3e just fine because it was that nuggety core of joy called D&D that we got through it. It's the proud, nerdy glory of waking neighbors up in the middle of the night when someone in the gaming group screams "TWENTY!!!!!!" and slays the Dragon and saves the day. Mechanics come and mechanics go but there are certain essentials that make D&D whatever it is.

As long as 4e has those essentials, I think I am gold.

Matthew
2008-02-29, 03:12 PM
Bear in mind that the posters there are obviously going to be hostile to D20, most of them are former players/DMs who didn't like it. Of course, the level of vitriol is weak compared to the reception 4e would get at somewhere like Dragonsfoot, where the topic is pretty much forbidden.

That said, the point he was making was an interesting one, which was that 4e more closely resembled a tactical miniatures combat game than previous incarnations of the game. That's hardly surprising, but that he doesn't criticise it on mechanical grounds could be an indication that as a comat game, it works well (of course, it could just be on account of an NDA). Given the gushing about all the 'tactical options of 4e' that seems a reasonable conclusion to me [i.e. 4e will be a fun tactical minitaures combat game].

ColdBrew
2008-02-29, 03:18 PM
Given the gushing about all the 'tactical options of 4e' that seems a reasonable conclusion to me [i.e. 4e will be a fun tactical minitaures combat game].
Which is all I ask of it. We know stealth and acrobatics are in, and my group can handle the rest on our own.

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-29, 03:20 PM
Bear in mind that the posters there are obviously going to be hostile to D20, most of them are former players/DMs who didn't like it. Of course, the level of vitriol is weak compared to the reception 4e would get at somewhere like Dragonsfoot, where the topic is pretty much forbidden.

That said, the point he was making was an interesting one, which was that 4e more closely resembled a tactical miniatures combat game than previous incarnations of the game. That's hardly surprising, but that he doesn't criticise it on mechanical grounds could be an indication that as a comat game, it works well (of course, it could just be on account of an NDA). Given the gushing about all the 'tactical options of 4e' that seems a reasonable conclusion to me [i.e. 4e will be a fun tactical minitaures combat game].

Yeah. The part that I find ironic and hilarious is that he dislikes it for being a good tactical combat game, when D&D of course began as a tactical combat game.:smallbiggrin:

ColdBrew
2008-02-29, 03:26 PM
Yeah. The part that I find ironic and hilarious is that he dislikes it for being a good tactical combat game, when D&D of course began as a tactical combat game.:smallbiggrin:
Whaddya mean "began"? You've got 300 pages of combat options, but rules for convincing your worst enemy that, actually, he should be your devoted follower amount to "roll really high".

Rachel Lorelei
2008-02-29, 03:26 PM
If that _is_ how it works, I won't like it. I didn't like the consequences of MagicMart (in terms of character customization) more than I didn't like the implications.
*shrug* I like it. Player empowerment is big these days, maybe you've heard.
Really, being able to get the items you want is like being able to pick the feats or classes you want.


A highly mechanically effective 3.5 group killed about anything in one round anyway, dragon or no, as a consequence of the high-lethality, offensive-oriented combat structure. I meant against a _realistic_ group the like of which I'd be likely to play in, where the CR system didn't blatantly break down.
Given that damage outputs have been lowered and save-or-dies removed, one-round combats will be rarer, I guess.

hamlet
2008-02-29, 03:30 PM
Yeah. The part that I find ironic and hilarious is that he dislikes it for being a good tactical combat game, when D&D of course began as a tactical combat game.:smallbiggrin:

Maybe he was implying that the game may have evolved beyond that?

Mr. Friendly
2008-02-29, 03:34 PM
Maybe he was implying that the game may have evolved beyond that?

Of course it has. But as long as you have the rules you need at hand, why shouldn't the combat be smooth and efficient? Everything that happens out of combat is all roleplay, by and large - or should be.

Rutee
2008-02-29, 03:37 PM
Of course it has. But as long as you have the rules you need at hand, why shouldn't the combat be smooth and efficient? Everything that happens out of combat is all roleplay, by and large - or should be.
Vastly disagree. Combat should be no less roleplaying then the rest of the game, and the rest of the game should be just as mechanically interesting. At least, speaking in a vacuum; I acknowledge that 4e still doesn't get that, and that Dungeons and Dragons as a whole likely never will.

And to be strictly fair, nobody else I know has gotten that /quite/ down yet, though strides have been made.

Artanis
2008-02-29, 03:49 PM
Oh, I *like* this. Making item creation easy for PCs is going to give them the items they want just like they were Magic-Supermart-Browsing the way they so often are assumed to do in 3.5, but without the need for Magic Supermart.
Even if it does do that, it won't have nearly as much impact on the game because of the decreased effect and importance of magic items. In 3e, you can drastically alter the capabilities of your character by blinging him out with 50 points of stat boosts and Wonderous Items that imitate twelve different spells. However, when "buying/making whatever you want" means a Handy Haversack and a Decanter of Endless Water...well...you get the picture :smallwink:

Deepblue706
2008-02-29, 03:54 PM
This "Massawyrm" guy doesn't write with a style that appeals to me. Therefore, I hereby declare he is a fool, and I refuse to consider this review to have any merit.

Morty
2008-02-29, 03:57 PM
*shrug* I like it. Player empowerment is big these days, maybe you've heard.


It doesn't mean it's a good thing for everyone.

Rachel Lorelei
2008-02-29, 03:59 PM
It doesn't mean it's a good thing for everyone.

If you like not being able to decide what you get to do, I... really can't help you. Have the DM decide what you do even when you have the option of doing it yourself, I guess?

Rutee
2008-02-29, 04:00 PM
No, it pretty much is, actually. If you dislike player empowerment s a player, you can always choose to render control back to the GM.

...Now if you as a GM like it, you're probably SOL, but it genuinely seems, to take the analogy coined earlier, as though the gentry is angry at the serfs discoverring movable print.

Morty
2008-02-29, 04:02 PM
If you like not being able to decide what you get to do, I... really can't help you. Have the DM decide what you do even when you have the option of doing it yourself, I guess?

Can you please stop putting words in my mouth? Never did I say I don't like deciding what I get to do. I just don't like when players have everything handed on a platter. Items are something players should have occasionally trouble getting.
Seriously, people operating in extremes bug the crap out of me.

hamlet
2008-02-29, 04:02 PM
Of course it has. But as long as you have the rules you need at hand, why shouldn't the combat be smooth and efficient? Everything that happens out of combat is all roleplay, by and large - or should be.

Didn't say that it shouldn't.

But I'll go on record to say that 3.x combat was ANYTHING but smooth and easy. No battle should take hours per turn. That's absurd.

Nor should any system focus so intensly on combat that it comes off feeling like an expanded miniatures game.

There seems to be very little balance in terms of how things are set up anymore.

Rutee
2008-02-29, 04:03 PM
Can you please cease putting words in my mouth? Never did I say I don't like deciding what I get to do. I just don't like when players have everything handed on a platter. Items are something players should have occasionally trouble getting.

Make 'em work for the lore to get 'em then. Or the raw materials.. Honestly, "Players make their own loot" isn't exactly "They get whatever they want whenever they want for free"

Rachel Lorelei
2008-02-29, 04:11 PM
Can you please stop putting words in my mouth? Never did I say I don't like deciding what I get to do. I just don't like when players have everything handed on a platter. Items are something players should have occasionally trouble getting.

Deciding what you get to do--and what your character is, looks like, tries to do, and even has--is what Player Empowerment is.

Being able to turn your GP into the item you want isn't being handed everything on a platter in any way. Shortage of gold? Can't make the item.
But why should that +2 sword, in a game that assumes they'll wind up with +2 swords (as D&D does and has), be hard to get anywhere the PCs have access to gold, magical materials, and downtime (if you're worried about them suddenly making a flying carpet because they need to cross a chasm, don't be)? What's the point of telling a player "no, you can't have the Amulet of Health"?



Nor should any system focus so intensly on combat that it comes off feeling like an expanded miniatures game.


4E deals more with non-combat encounters than 3.5 did, at least, it seems to me.

Morty
2008-02-29, 04:27 PM
Deciding what you get to do--and what your character is, looks like, tries to do, and even has--is what Player Empowerment is.

Being able to turn your GP into the item you want isn't being handed everything on a platter in any way. Shortage of gold? Can't make the item.
But why should that +2 sword, in a game that assumes they'll wind up with +2 swords (as D&D does and has), be hard to get anywhere the PCs have access to gold, magical materials, and downtime (if you're worried about them suddenly making a flying carpet because they need to cross a chasm, don't be)? What's the point of telling a player "no, you can't have the Amulet of Health"?

Because sometimes, DM might decide, for whatever reason, that players don't have the materials and knowledge required. Like for example when they're in a backwater town that never heard about a high-level wizard. And from this article, it looks like the only factor in making items is now gold and learining the "recipe". So, just like in 3ed without the XP cost. Of course, it might be just the overexcitement of the author and the game does require you to find specific ingredients. And the removal of "magic wal-mart" is big enough improvement I can swallow less-than-perfect crafting.

Rutee
2008-02-29, 04:31 PM
Because sometimes, DM might decide, for whatever reason, that players don't have the materials and knowledge required. Like for example when they're in a backwater town that never heard about a high-level wizard. And from this article, it looks like the only factor in making items is now gold and learining the "recipe". So, just like in 3ed without the XP cost. Of course, it might be just the overexcitement of the author and the game does require you to find specific ingredients.

I suspect the game doesn't, because that sort of byzantine crafting only really works in MMOs, where you /can't/ abstract the gold cost into equating into the magic materials, since someone 'has to' /collect/ those raw magic materials, because that's how the economy is constructed to work.

I doubt the end result will turn up terribly different from the item market of now, in terms of effects of PCs. At least there'll be less wonderring how those magic items are for such convenient sale though.

Fuzzy_Juan
2008-02-29, 04:33 PM
Heh, I actually met Harry Knowles once, he lives around here and was camped out for Star Wars ep 1 with the rest of us wackos. My buddies even joined him and some of his friends for a few games of the d6 Star Wars RPG. He's a pretty cool guy.

Rachel Lorelei
2008-02-29, 04:37 PM
Because sometimes, DM might decide, for whatever reason, that players don't have the materials and knowledge required. Like for example when they're in a backwater town that never heard about a high-level wizard. And from this article, it looks like the only factor in making items is now gold and learining the "recipe". So, just like in 3ed without the XP cost. Of course, it might be just the overexcitement of the author and the game does require you to find specific ingredients. And the removal of "magic wal-mart" is big enough improvement I can swallow less-than-perfect crafting.

Ideally, if the players have someone capable of making magic items (i.e., any spellcaster), and enough GP's worth of Generic Magical Material, they should be able to make the items they want (of the spellcaster's level or lower). The DM deciding "you're in a backwater town, no items for you!" doesn't actually add any fun to the game.

Rutee
2008-02-29, 04:44 PM
No, it doesn't, but it's understandable, since you can't, ICly, convert your GP into magic materials (Unless you mean "You already have the magic materials, of course") via shops. Rectifying the problem by going to a bigger town shouldn't be that hard, and IMO, won't really detract from things since crafting is done in downtime anyway.

Morty
2008-02-29, 04:44 PM
I suspect the game doesn't, because that sort of byzantine crafting only really works in MMOs, where you /can't/ abstract the gold cost into equating into the magic materials, since someone 'has to' /collect/ those raw magic materials, because that's how the economy is constructed to work.

Well, I personally think that rare materials work great for answering the question as to why only few packs of adventurers have those items. If getting the material for item requires you to go into a cave and kill a demon to get it's blood, you won't see much of them around- except in hands of adventurers who either craft them themselves after getting the materials or loot them from other people who did so.


Ideally, if the players have someone capable of making magic items (i.e., any spellcaster), and enough GP's worth of Generic Magical Material, they should be able to make the items they want (of the spellcaster's level or lower). The DM deciding "you're in a backwater town, no items for you!" doesn't actually add any fun to the game.

Crafting expensive items in backwater town doesn't make sense, and things that don't make sense don't add much fun either. Unless players buy materials in advance in some richer towns or the DM justifies it somehow.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-02-29, 04:44 PM
Actually, even non spellcasting characters should be able to make magic items. There are countless stories of heroes imbuing their items with great power (Just about every pair of Boots of Speed, many cloaks and let's not talk of weapons and armor), so that doesn't seem too far-fetched.

Fuzzy_Juan
2008-02-29, 04:57 PM
I am kinda assuming that creating magic items will be like 'enchanting' in WoW slightly...gather enough rare and exotic items (spend gold), then someone who knows how to enchant items uses this to create it for you...simple. Probably be a 'ritual' that wizards can do...though maybe non-spellcasting classes will be able to enchant as well.

I would actually enjoy it if creating a magic sword required certian things to be done, like for a flaming sword to slay a fire type monster with the blade, with the monster to be slain equal to or greater than the power (level) of the enchantment...that sort of thing might be pretty neat and make some magic items a bit more valuable and unique.

Puggins
2008-02-29, 04:59 PM
Well, I've never heard of this "Puggins", but as he registered yesterday and has made all of three posts here, I'm not about to take his word for, fell, anything.

Well, that's an awfully snide dismissal of another person's argument: "Well, I've never argued with you before, so I win!"

Look, post counts matter for recognition, I'm aware of that. Feel free to check my registration date (under the same name) in EnWorld, Maxminis and wizards.com if you wanna know how long I've been around. But in this case, I'm not asking you to trust my judgment or opinion. I'm stating that Ain't It Cool News is anti-Corporate, well trusted in the geek community, and that Massawyrm is one of the most prominent poster on AICN. About ten second's worth of googling or wiki-work will get you the same information.

Feel free to verify what I just said- it's not a matter of opinion, and it's extremely annoying when someone tries to derail a debate by calling into question a fact (not an opinion) due to the opponent's lack of establishment with the Cool Crowd (tm).

Trog
2008-02-29, 05:29 PM
We're not cool here Puggins. We're just drawn that way. :smalltongue:

But... um... you might want to erase the 3 other duplicate posts. 'M jus' sayin'.

Runa
2008-02-29, 06:04 PM
Well, most likely the flaws in the system either A) are non-obvious or B) are small. It is possible, for instance, that the reviewers simply lack the hardcore min/maxers who really try a system. It is also possible it is a much harder system to break, ALA Alternity - there are ways to make systems less breakable.

I'm hoping it's the latter personally, but you may be right about the lack of optimizer folks.

This now puts me in the camp of "True Neutral" on 4E. The mechanics are different, but at least some of them do sound like they'll be more fun and easy, which I must confess, actually appeals to me, as I'm still at least 50% newbie, and our group is constantly taking in new players, many of whom quit because the game is too slow and complicated to be very fun for them. On the other hand, we don't know what min/maxers might do to the system, and my group is generally chock full of those.

On the other hand, I just sprang for a whole crapload of discounted 3.5 books, but, those are cheap enough I could sell them off again easy, so we'll just have to see. Basically, I've been falling in love with Eberron ('cept for the Action Points thing, which just seemed like kind of a weird mechanic to me...), so I guess I'll wait and see what they do with Eberron first. Which from what I've read, probably won't be for another year. So... yeah. Put me in the "still waiting to see, may or may not update" camp.

I will say the idea that parties gel easier in 4e gives me a hope spot, though - I LOVE when parties can just work, but then, these people actually probably know each other better than some of my group does. And, it's sort of disappointing that Druids aren't included yet - I know at least one player in our group who loves playing Druids and would probably be disappointed at a lack of them.



Some of what was said in this review was stuff we already knew, and a lot of it was confirmation of the obvious. What we haven't seen is the crunch, which is ultimately what will make or break the system. That said, 4th edition, ever since I heard about them using some of the ideas from the Tome of Battle, I knew it was going to be massively better than 3.X because the way the ToB does things is far better than the way 3.X does them.

You know, for all that people are saying no "crunch" is included, there's actually a few tidbits. These may or may not be new to the people who've been following it obsessively, but they're there.

For one - diagonal movements = no longer counted differently, a square is a square. Additionally, we know Sorcerers, Half-Orcs, and Druids are not included yet, something the reviewer was fairly disappointed in actually.



I wouldn't. Geeks are a horrible audience. I have two screenshots illustrating this: one, the "after planeswalkers were officially announced" screenshot of the WotC forums, where in at least one forum EVERY SINGLE POST on the first page was about planeswalkers. The other was immediately after 4E was announced, with the "doomsday thread" being four times as long as the "its going to rock" thread.

This indicates that geeks are really, really big whiners. And it is true. You see it everywhere. All the "Third edition is teh roxxor!", ignoring the obvious and demonstrated flaws, and the "fourth edition will suck", despite there being no evidence whatsoever that it will. Heck, after it was announced people said it would suck, when they knew absolutely nothing whatsoever about it.

They'll end up playing 4th edition, most likely, and it will be better than 3.X was, much as 3.X was better than second edition. The whining will continue, though, because some people simply are inherently whiners and the internet gives them a forum. They like to hear themselves talk so they'll make tons of negative posts, but in the end, it just won't matter.

It's not just the geeks though - it's the anti-geek trolls. Check this out (I had to cover the profanities to make sure I didn't go too far against this forum's apparent standards):


"Eeeeuuuunnnnggggpppphhh........ ..."
by Bill Brasky Feb 28th, 2008
12:23:56 PM
Is the noise that you make when you slide your scratched coke-bottom glasses up your greasy nose. God, what a ****ing geek.

Of course, it's in large part the same worthless guy over and over:


...is it me or....
by Bill Brasky Feb 28th, 2008
12:35:51 PM
..does it just sound unnatural that you are including wives into this discussion? I mean, you guys are actually playing ****ing role-playing games with your wives for Christ's sake! My wife is a real ball buster sometimes, but when she does nag me, it is because I am doing something like, I don't know, playing video games or reading comics or other non-productive ****. She doesn’t join in! Shouldn't your wives be working or exercising, or taking care of the baby, or shopping at Victoria's Secret or I don't know, trying to **** your brains out? Jesus H. Christ on a pop-cycle stick! L.O.S.E.R.S.!

As a female gamer (who plays Morrowind, plans to DM an Eberron campaign, who both reads and collects comics and even has a small collection of anime cels and PVC figures - and who has never had trouble finding a date even amongst non-gamers), suffice it to say that is most misogynistically inaccurate post I've seen all day, and if I didn't already realize it was an obvious troll just trying to rile up the geeks, I would be somewhat irked. :smalltongue:

And this:


I can't believe I read this site
by Fat and Curious Feb 28th, 2008
12:42:29 PM
And to the married man who admits to reading comic books? That's just as nerdy as Dungeons and Dragons. You're just as big of a pathetic nerd as this 12 sided dice wielding reviewer. Comic book readers aren't any less greasy than goblin warrior roleplayers.

Keeping in mind of course that this is on the Ain't It Cool News website,one of the geekiest websites that doesn't belong to WotC or ThinkGeek that I've ever seen.

I've always wondered about the "greasy" stereotype, come to think of it. Every geek I know who collects comics is obsessive about keeping them in at least reasonably good condition, if not outright pristine condition, including handling them with clean hands and bagging and boarding them with acid-free backing and plastic wrap.

-Runa

Azerian Kelimon
2008-02-29, 06:14 PM
It's more about the loser geek type. You know, the one that wears cheetos stained underwear all day long, etc.

That troll was an interesting read. Reminds me of the bigger pros of being shunned by our "peers". And no, not having to stand that kind of idiot is not one of those pros, though it certainly is good.

Puggins
2008-02-29, 06:15 PM
We're not cool here Puggins. We're just drawn that way. :smalltongue:

But... um... you might want to erase the 3 other duplicate posts. 'M jus' sayin'.

Oopsies!

Sorry about that, folks.... lag posting FTW!

hamlet
2008-02-29, 06:19 PM
4E deals more with non-combat encounters than 3.5 did, at least, it seems to me.


Sure, but then again, that's not particularly hard to do.

Ascension
2008-02-29, 07:04 PM
Well, I'm about to indulge in some overly opinionated criticism with little to no justification, probably subconsciously as an attempt to defend my recent 3.5 book-buying binge as something more than a waste of money and time, but hey, all the cool kids are doing it, so why hold back?

The biggest theme I've seen in the rules so far, both from reviews and released crunch, is the theme of simplification.

On the one hand, this is good... it'll ease the indoctrination conversion recruitment of new players, it'll reduce confusion in combat (although it sounds like reduced damage output will cause the encounters to average the same length, anyway, just without as much flipping through books), it'll probably even make the game seem more fun at first.

I imagine the problem will come, for me at least, in what happens after the honeymoon. Every time I play a simpler game I love the experience... for at least a year... maybe two, three years... but one day I wake up and I think to myself "Huh... so that really is all there is to it." See, I personally like to explore game systems... to learn them slowly, gradually, feeling out all their various possibilities over the course of years. I feel a sense of personal triumph whenever I figure out how to make some new thing work, or when I reach a new level of understanding in regards to superficially simple tactics. I can still have some fun with a system after I fully learn it, but the returns gradually begin to diminish.

I admit it's much better to have a simple RPG than it is to have a simple wargame, since you can just shift your focus even more towards characterization when the rules begin to wear thin, but a large part of the reason why I enjoy playing non-freeform RPGs is the joy of figuring out how to mechanically represent an obscure character concept. When figuring out how to build the character you want to play stops being an adventure, it turns into a chore... an easy chore, perhaps, given the simpler system, but still a chore.

I'm happy to announce that I'm still figuring out 3.5... and I probably will be figuring it out for a long time. Even when I master Core, every sourcebook is a fresh new fountain of unexplored mechanics, a wealth of new options and new frustrations. That's what makes buying books exciting for me.

True, every new rulebook, regardless of system, is exciting for me, but especially 3.5. It's just such a beautifully byzantine system. Maybe the simplification in 4E is just simplification, not oversimplification. I really hope so. I'm just afraid that I'll be disappointed.

Maybe I'm just a rules masochist.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-02-29, 07:09 PM
That could compare to a great post from another forum that compared falling in love with a deep person, as to falling for a dumb blonde. Which earns you one Epic Win Point for 4th ed. But somehow, I believe 4th will turn out to be much, MUCH more complex than 3.5.

Rutee
2008-02-29, 07:11 PM
Maybe I'm just a rules masochist.

Liking byzantine rules for their own sake? Yeah, pretty much.

Artanis
2008-02-29, 07:19 PM
*stuff*
A couple things:

First, if WotC gets you to play for three years, they've done a pretty good job as far as selling the game goes, even if you later get bored of it :smallwink:

Second, it sounds like WotC is trying to make 4e just as complex, only in a different way. Whereas 3e was complex in that it was a b**** and a half to understand how to actually do something, 4e is (supposed to be) complex in that you have a lot of options to manage and enemy tricks to plan for. So instead of spending all your time buried in a rulebook wondering "how the hell do I hit somebody?", you'll (in theory) be spending just as much time wondering "how the hell do I get out of this predicament?"

Zincorium
2008-02-29, 07:20 PM
That could compare to a great post from another forum that compared falling in love with a deep person, as to falling for a dumb blonde. Which earns you one Epic Win Point for 4th ed. But somehow, I believe 4th will turn out to be much, MUCH more complex than 3.5.

What seems to be evident is that, unlike with previous editions, the complexity will be spread out a bit more.

Seriously, without variant rules the only listed option a fighter in 2nd edition had in combat was to roll the D20 and see what AC he hit. At the same time, the wizard had tons of things he could do but half of them required some sort of DM arbitration to really figure out what happened.

4th edition seems to be evening it out, taking the available complexity and handing out a roughly equal portion to each.

Arakune
2008-02-29, 07:30 PM
A couple things:

First, if WotC gets you to play for three years, they've done a pretty good job as far as selling the game goes, even if you later get bored of it :smallwink:

Second, it sounds like WotC is trying to make 4e just as complex, only in a different way. Whereas 3e was complex in that it was a b**** and a half to understand how to actually do something, 4e is (supposed to be) complex in that you have a lot of options to manage and enemy tricks to plan for. So instead of spending all your time buried in a rulebook wondering "how the hell do I hit somebody?", you'll (in theory) be spending just as much time wondering "how the hell do I get out of this predicament?"

And the later is much better.

Matthew
2008-02-29, 07:41 PM
Also, assuming it is all true, I really don't even see the negative aspects of what he is talking about. It seems to be "Oh no, characters are designed for combat and ease of play" and that leads him to "No more roleplaying in D&D ever." Having a battlemap and minis does not replace role-playing. Having combat does not replace storytelling and character growth. Those are all things you still *can* do. Just that they seem to have made the part where you kick in the front door and start swinging sharp objects go a lot faster.

I think what he was really driving at was the difference between narrative led combat and miniature led combat. I like both and I like to be able to do both from time to time. AD&D has a very fractured approach, some rules simply do not mesh if you try to apply them with others; on the other hand, this was partly a result of a Miniature based combat system transforming into a narrative combat system. It didn't go in any one direction over the years and suffered from a dual identity. With D20 and now 4e it seems Miniature based combat is going to be the only one supported. It's true that his rhetoric didn't do much to make this point, but I think that is essentially what it was.



Yeah. The part that I find ironic and hilarious is that he dislikes it for being a good tactical combat game, when D&D of course began as a tactical combat game.:smallbiggrin:

As I say, it's not really ironic, so much as symptomatic of two different approaches to running combat in AD&D.



What seems to be evident is that, unlike with previous editions, the complexity will be spread out a bit more.

Seriously, without variant rules the only listed option a fighter in 2nd edition had in combat was to roll the D20 and see what AC he hit.

Well, no, not variant rules. DM arbitration, for sure, but you just have to read the opening chapter of the DMG 2e Combat Section to see how combat was supposed to 'conventionally' work, which is to say 'dynamically' (whether it did in reality for actual groups is another matter). It sounds like 4e is going to emphasise the same approach with a default mechanic (presumably similar to the D20 Attribute Check, which is so often overlooked).

JadedDM
2008-02-29, 09:39 PM
True, every new rulebook, regardless of system, is exciting for me, but especially 3.5. It's just such a beautifully byzantine system. Maybe the simplification in 4E is just simplification, not oversimplification. I really hope so. I'm just afraid that I'll be disappointed.

Ascension, I remember when 3E was first released. One of the big selling points WotC used was the claim of how simple and easy it was, compared to 2E. Simplification was a big selling point. And now?

Trust me. No matter how simple and easy 4E will be, it won't stay that way, not after the splatbooks start arriving and the power creep begins.

horseboy
2008-02-29, 11:14 PM
I think what he was really driving at was the difference between narrative led combat and miniature led combat. I like both and I like to be able to do both from time to time. AD&D has a very fractured approach, some rules simply do not mesh if you try to apply them with others; on the other hand, this was partly a result of a Miniature based combat system transforming into a narrative combat system. It didn't go in any one direction over the years and suffered from a dual identity. With D20 and now 4e it seems Miniature based combat is going to be the only one supported. It's true that his rhetoric didn't do much to make this point, but I think that is essentially what it was.

Very true. I do love me some Mordheim, but I wouldn't call it a Role Playing Game.

Indon
2008-02-29, 11:30 PM
*shrug* I like it. Player empowerment is big these days, maybe you've heard.

Player empowerment was pretty big for 3'rd edition, certainly - it was all about highly modular options that all fit together with wild diversity and ultimately, each individual player had the capacity to build their character in such an extreme way that it removed the game's cohesion. That's a lot of player empowerment.

4'th edition has a whole lot less of that. This upgrade is largely about DM empowerment - CR is smoother, monsters are easier to run and more straightforward to generate, problematic mechanics are removed from player control and now exist as DM-controlled plot devices, and so on. Maintenance of the MagicMart is only consistent with this philosophy insofar as magic items are now weaker, and a less significant part of the character.

Titanium Dragon
2008-02-29, 11:49 PM
The dumbest thing in his latest review:


XP works a lot differently now too. EVERYTHING you do can pretty much get you XP. The big change is that Social Encounters will net you xp. Traps and puzzles are XP based rather than just CRs. And taking a tip from WoW, there are even QUEST REWARDS now.

There's a name for this: Second edition D&D. Seriously, WoW? Seriously? NO. SOOO wrong. This was standard in D&D, and indeed is even in 3.X as an option.


Hey, didn't social encounter rewards first appear on Exalted? My RPG-History-Fu is weak right now, but I believe they were there first.

Nope; again, this is something from older editions of D&D; I know it existed in at a minimum second edition. It was largely hand-wave DM fiat, but that was pretty inherent to the 2nd edition system. I'm sure other old RPGs have 'em as well, though the level of codification is questionable.


A short negative blurb from a self described playtester of 4e can be found here: Hawkwinter

I think the worst of it is is that it looks like he basically took what is known on the web and reposted it, given he said absolutely nothing whatsoever unknown.

That message board seems to be populated entirely by people who don't understand RPGs, though; they don't realize that every RPG is a GAME. If you want pure RPing, freeform RPing is fun for some people, but clearly not these people - they want a game as well.


That said, the point he was making was an interesting one, which was that 4e more closely resembled a tactical miniatures combat game than previous incarnations of the game. That's hardly surprising, but that he doesn't criticise it on mechanical grounds could be an indication that as a comat game, it works well (of course, it could just be on account of an NDA). Given the gushing about all the 'tactical options of 4e' that seems a reasonable conclusion to me [i.e. 4e will be a fun tactical minitaures combat game].

All RPGs are tactical miniatures games; they all descent from the original D&D, which is itself an adaptation of wargaming rules. That isn't really a bad thing, though.

Incidentally, the game which is perhaps the most different from D&D of all the RPGs I've played was made by TSR itself; it was Alternity. It had a VERY uniform rules set, which lead to everything working pretty much identically mechanically. The most interesting part, though, was the "complex skill roll" - you're trying to do some complex task. You make a series of skill rolls, and are trying to achieve a certain number of successes without rolling a 20; a normal success counts once, a good one twice, and an amazing one three times, but if you failed three times during the attempt you failed entirely. This worked for a huge variety of situations - diplomatic negotiations, ship repair during battle, hacking into a system, defusing a bomb, ect. It allowed for a lot of awesome dramatic tension with a very simple system.


I imagine the problem will come, for me at least, in what happens after the honeymoon. Every time I play a simpler game I love the experience... for at least a year... maybe two, three years... but one day I wake up and I think to myself "Huh... so that really is all there is to it." See, I personally like to explore game systems... to learn them slowly, gradually, feeling out all their various possibilities over the course of years. I feel a sense of personal triumph whenever I figure out how to make some new thing work, or when I reach a new level of understanding in regards to superficially simple tactics. I can still have some fun with a system after I fully learn it, but the returns gradually begin to diminish.

Chess. QED.

Seriously. Having a poor rules system is a bad thing, not a good one; a simple rules system is better than a complex one for emergent complexity and for gameplay purposes.

And in any event, the system doesn't look any SIMPLER so much as it is more logical, coherent, and consistant. Alternity probably takes this to the greatest extreme of any game, and it is the best RPG system I've encountered. There are tons of options in this game, and indeed, it looks like there are much more options core in this edition than in 3.5, and it is no longer that spellcasters have massively more options than non-spellcasters, which was always a moronic system.


I think what he was really driving at was the difference between narrative led combat and miniature led combat. I like both and I like to be able to do both from time to time. AD&D has a very fractured approach, some rules simply do not mesh if you try to apply them with others; on the other hand, this was partly a result of a Miniature based combat system transforming into a narrative combat system. It didn't go in any one direction over the years and suffered from a dual identity. With D20 and now 4e it seems Miniature based combat is going to be the only one supported. It's true that his rhetoric didn't do much to make this point, but I think that is essentially what it was.

This system supports narrative combat much better than previous editions did; if there are actual generalized mechanics for me to use tipping tables over (or jumping on tables) and the like, that's an improvement. What you are doing is saying what you WANT to be true, rather than what IS true. 2nd edition was quite poor at adjucating narrative combat because there weren't real mechanics for it.

LibraryOgre
2008-02-29, 11:50 PM
4'th edition has a whole lot less of that. This upgrade is largely about DM empowerment - CR is smoother, monsters are easier to run and more straightforward to generate, problematic mechanics are removed from player control and now exist as DM-controlled plot devices, and so on. Maintenance of the MagicMart is only consistent with this philosophy insofar as magic items are now weaker, and a less significant part of the character.

I'd point out that the AICN review was from the POV of someone who was DMing... though I also found it interesting that several of the "breakthroughs" that he mentioned (specific XP for monsters, XP for non-combat actions and encounters, fewer stat-bumping items, etc.) are things that were common in 2e. :smallbiggrin:

JadedDM
2008-03-01, 12:41 AM
I'd point out that the AICN review was from the POV of someone who was DMing... though I also found it interesting that several of the "breakthroughs" that he mentioned (specific XP for monsters, XP for non-combat actions and encounters, fewer stat-bumping items, etc.) are things that were common in 2e. :smallbiggrin:

Which just goes to show, if it ain't broke, don't fix it! :smallbiggrin:

kjones
2008-03-01, 12:42 AM
Exactly. Re-implementing the best parts of 2nd edition can only be a good thing.

/me waxes nostalgic to himself

EvilElitest
2008-03-01, 01:17 AM
I find it interesting how a few people keep agreeing with each other and one-upping each other in terms of jaded dismissal until they all agree with each other that:

1. No one could possibly like 4th edition this much
2. The person writing the review was paid to write it.
3. Someone on the board is a shell account trying to prop it up.


If I suggested that people were complaining about fourth edition were being paid by another company to do so, I would rightly be laughed at. Even though it's at least as possible as the above.

I think that idea is that this guy is too happy, ether he is a total fanboy, bribed, or simple not an objective thinker. Really, having no complaints? That seems absurd
from
EE

Edit
Correct me if i'm wrong, but didn't the XP system come from earlier editions, now MMOs?

Zincorium
2008-03-01, 01:32 AM
I think that idea is that this guy is too happy, ether he is a total fanboy, bribed, or simple not an objective thinker. Really, having no complaints? That seems absurd
from
EE

And you're willing to accept two more possibilities than a lot of people were. Frankly, number 1 on your list is the most likely possibility. He's like a little kid on christmas morning, unwrapping a shiny new toy that hasn't had it's luster dimmed when it's flaws finally become visible after some hard use.

And quite frankly, having no complaints is perfectly reasonable if you're excited enough about the possibilities of something. It doesn't mean the review is unbiased. What it does mean is that if you're also very excited about fourth edition, you probably won't have any complaints initially either.


And really, people, are you all so wrapped up in your personal opinions that you cannot even conceive of an honest, thought-out review of something just because it contradicts your preconceived notions?

horseboy
2008-03-01, 01:43 AM
That's not why I'm "jaded" on this. It's, that well, there's nothing really new to Gaming that he's mentioned in this article that would make me share his sense of wonder and amazement. It's kind of like that episode of Futurama where Fry sees that thing with colors he didn't know even existed and he feels at one with the universe for the first time in his life. And Amy is all like "That thing at the shoe store? They make some college kid wear that." And Bender is like "We all feel that way, all the time." Everything I would consider good he's said about 4.0 (with the possible exception of alphabetized rules, man if that isn't a genuine good idea) has already existed in other games for at least the last 15-20 years. So I guess it's more like watching your kid get all excited about something on Christmas day. Sure, I'm happy for him, but I'm just not going to have that level of excitement.

Fhaolan
2008-03-01, 01:47 AM
*shrug* I like it. Player empowerment is big these days, maybe you've heard.
Really, being able to get the items you want is like being able to pick the feats or classes you want.


There is nothing wrong with player empowerment. However, it has to be handled carefully, otherwise you end up with 'player omnipotence' rather than 'player empowerment'. :smallsmile: I find that when players can do whatever they want, whenever they want, with no restrictions... they get bored quickly and want to go play a different game. Or one player dominates the game because they can talk faster than the others, driving the other players off. Or they get upset and start yelling at each other about who shot who first like they were five-year-olds playing cops and robbers. And yes, I've had this happen. In a game store during a game of... I can't remember the name of the game, it was supposed to be a card resolution system, but the cards were supposed to be a guide rather than fixed results. I remember it being awfully metaphysical, as well, but it was ten years ago if not more, so my memory's vague. It my have been a playtest session for a prototype game.

-- The following is me just rambling. It is not a direct reply to anything anyone has posted. Do not take offence, I'm not talking about you. :smallbiggrin: --

I'll have to see what the real rules are. It's entirely possible that the rules will state that characters can throw gold coins into the air, and magic items will fall into their laps. Unlikely, but technically possible. I've seen published game systems that do work that way. From what I've read in the preview articles, I get the impression that you can throw as much money into magic items as you desire, it just doesn't gain you as much as it did in previous editions. I have vague recollections of one article saying that magic items will scale with your level, so that a magic longsword will be +3 at 6th level, +5 at 10th, etc. Of course, I may be mixing up different things with no relation to each other.

It boils down to that no matter what preview article or review is published, until I actually see the rules, all the rules, I won't know if I really like it or not. I'm not approaching this as an upgrade of 3.x D&D. I'm approaching it as a new system, which I may or may not want to convert to, if it can handle the types of games I want to play. No different than GURPs, Paladium, previous editions of D&D, True20, etc. After all, it's not a religion, it's a resolution system. :smallsmile:

A lot of what I've read of 4ed makes me curious enough to want to take a closer look, but a lot of other stuff I've read makes me think it won't be appropriate for the kinds of game I like. If it is, cool. If it isn't, oh well. There are always more resolution systems to try.

Methabroax
2008-03-01, 01:54 AM
My two cents on the topic of his boundless enthusiasm. Since he's in the playtesting stage, he can enjoy the parts that he wants without having to seriously worry about flaws. In theory, the flaws will be fed back to developers and edited out of the frame before the final form. I think also the bare bones format allows for a much more streamlined set of rules which can only play to balance. I'm not sure it's worth losing the flair and flavor that 3.5 has built up with it's multitude of classes/PrCs/paths but it will change the playing field, even if it doesn't level it ( like WotC claims).

Personally, I am looking forward to reading the new 4th edition rules and seeing how the new magic system works. I really love the Vancian system of magic and Iterative attacks. They feel like the backbone of what DnD has been.

Methabroax

Rachel Lorelei
2008-03-01, 05:42 AM
All RPGs are tactical miniatures games; they all descent from the original D&D, which is itself an adaptation of wargaming rules. That isn't really a bad thing, though.

I challenge you to show how Nobilis is a tactical miniatures game.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-01, 06:35 AM
I challenge you to show how Nobilis is a tactical miniatures game.

It *does* have a strong resource allocation component...

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-01, 06:37 AM
That's not why I'm "jaded" on this. It's, that well, there's nothing really new to Gaming that he's mentioned in this article that would make me share his sense of wonder and amazement. It's kind of like that episode of Futurama where Fry sees that thing with colors he didn't know even existed and he feels at one with the universe for the first time in his life. And Amy is all like "That thing at the shoe store? They make some college kid wear that." And Bender is like "We all feel that way, all the time." Everything I would consider good he's said about 4.0 (with the possible exception of alphabetized rules, man if that isn't a genuine good idea) has already existed in other games for at least the last 15-20 years. So I guess it's more like watching your kid get all excited about something on Christmas day. Sure, I'm happy for him, but I'm just not going to have that level of excitement.

*nods*

That's been kind of my attitude to all the 4E hysteria. Some piece of information will be released about 4E and some people will say "wow, this will revolutionize gaming" and some other people will say "wow, this will destroy gaming utterly" and some of us say "hang on, games have been doing that for decades".

Project_Mayhem
2008-03-01, 06:55 AM
And quite frankly, having no complaints is perfectly reasonable if you're excited enough about the possibilities of something. It doesn't mean the review is unbiased. What it does mean is that if you're also very excited about fourth edition, you probably won't have any complaints initially either

Exactly. If you asked me to review, say, Resident Evil 4 (or something else I'd been really excited about playing) a week or two after I'd got it I'd have very few complaints if any. Now, 2 odd years later, i could easily point out the problems

Kurald Galain
2008-03-01, 07:17 AM
All RPGs are tactical miniatures games; they all descent from the original D&D, which is itself an adaptation of wargaming rules.
Wherever did you get this idea? Nearly every RPG is not a tactical miniature game, not even close. While one might argue that all RPGs descend (via D&D) from wargaming, a better analogy is to state that they descent from cowboys-and-indians.



Incidentally, the game which is perhaps the most different from D&D of all the RPGs I've played was made by TSR itself; it was Alternity. It had a VERY uniform rules set, which lead to everything working pretty much identically mechanically.
Alternity? Hah. No it's not. First, it borrows heavily from D&D to the point where they even used the same six ability scores, and the same basic four classes (yes, they changed the names, but only barely). Second, it has an extremely clunky dice rolling mechanic (take your skill rank, add this die, subtract that other die...) and a very poorly-scaling "actions" mechanic (with the difference between 14 and 15 being minimal, and the step from 15 to 16 being huge). And third, the rules were widely divergent in that every skill had an essentially arbitrary cost, and number of prerequisites. Character generation is a complete mess.

It's a rather poorly designed system, actually. Unsurprisingly, it was discontinued after less than two years on the shelf. If you want something that's actually different, try Amber DRP. Or Everway. Or even Paranoia. None of which, incidentally, are even remotely a tactical miniatures game.

Matthew
2008-03-01, 08:35 AM
All RPGs are tactical miniatures games; they all descent from the original D&D, which is itself an adaptation of wargaming rules. That isn't really a bad thing, though.

As others have mentioned, this is not what I am saying. There is a recognisable difference between narrative led combat and miniature based combat. The complaint that was being made in the previously linked blurb was that the emphasis in 4e is firmly on miniature based combat. If you do not see a difference between the two, then there's not really much I can say to convince you otherwise.



This system supports narrative combat much better than previous editions did; if there are actual generalized mechanics for me to use tipping tables over (or jumping on tables) and the like, that's an improvement. What you are doing is saying what you WANT to be true, rather than what IS true. 2nd edition was quite poor at adjucating narrative combat because there weren't real mechanics for it.

The first two sentences in this passage seem contradictory. On the one hand you seem assured that 4e will support narrative combat (which you now apparently recognise as distinct from miniature based combat) better than previous editions, on the other you seem to indicate that you don't know what the rules are. Which is it?

In any case, no, I'm not just saying what I want to be true; what would be the purpose of producing an argument without basis? Casting a slur on my objectiveness is just poor form, and the claim that because AD&D has no explicit mechanics for dealing with dynamic combat strikes me as terribly close minded and rather missing the point. You may want rules heavy miniature based tactical combat games to be the standard by which all RPGs are judged, but few reasonable people would use such criteria to jusdge what is subjectively true for them [i.e. what games are 'good' and why].

Tren
2008-03-01, 09:19 AM
Casting a slur on my objectiveness is just poor form, as is the claim that if a game has no explicit mechanics for something then the game is somehow flawed.

The game isn't really flawed, but it does require a more experienced DM to be able to consistently and effectively arbitrate when there aren't even general guidelines. From the sound of Massawyrms description, the "Stat check vs. Particular defense" will be emphasized more as a means of arbitrating actions that aren't defined in the typical rules set. While in older editions this may have already been done by a lot of DMs, I see this as a good thing for new or inexperienced DMs. If there's a simple way written into the rules to adjudicate situations on the fly, it can be conducive to narrative combat. When it's easy to determine what happens when your player says "I want to kick the table out from under them", one can expect it to happen more commonly.

Indon
2008-03-01, 09:35 AM
I'd point out that the AICN review was from the POV of someone who was DMing... though I also found it interesting that several of the "breakthroughs" that he mentioned (specific XP for monsters, XP for non-combat actions and encounters, fewer stat-bumping items, etc.) are things that were common in 2e. :smallbiggrin:

It's not just specific XP for monsters. It's the guarantee that everything at X level is X powerful, and a monster that gives 2X experience is twice as powerful as two X experience monsters, and so on. AD&D did not do that.

And 3'rd edition's rules were not significantly simplified. The rules were made clearer and easier to understand, certainly, but Wizards' didn't cut away large sections of the rules and leave them with much less complex alternatives.

Titanium Dragon - Go is a better example than Chess, in this case. Chess has different kinds of pieces, Go doesn't, but Go is (largely because it's played on a larger board and the number of pieces increases with time rather than decreases) much harder for a computer to analyze.

Of course, the counterexample is Nim, which is relatively easy to solve (2'nd player generally has a winning strategy).

Ultimately, both games with complex and simple rules can develop strong complexity and emergent mechanics, and both games with complex and simple rules can fail to do so. Games with simple rules are nonetheless simpler than games with complex rules - for instance, Go becomes even harder to analyze if you, say, add Risk cards into the game. (i.e. every turn in which you capture a stone, you get a risk card - you turn in three cards for a second stone to lay on your turn - now all of a sudden more aggressive strategies which may sacrifice some territory in order to obtain immediate captures may pay off in the long run by giving crucial immediate placement on a turn-in)

Matthew
2008-03-01, 09:39 AM
The game isn't really flawed, but it does require a more experienced DM to be able to consistently and effectively arbitrate when there aren't even general guidelines. From the sound of Massawyrms description, the "Stat check vs. Particular defense" will be emphasized more as a means of arbitrating actions that aren't defined in the typical rules set. While in older editions this may have already been done by a lot of DMs, I see this as a good thing for new or inexperienced DMs. If there's a simple way written into the rules to adjudicate situations on the fly, it can be conducive to narrative combat. When it's easy to determine what happens when your player says "I want to kick the table out from under them", one can expect it to happen more commonly.

Heh, heh. I actually just rephrased that sentence in an attempt to make the point clearer.

I agree with what you're saying. There's no doubt in my mind that D20 was partly built to ease the burden on the DM and reduce the degree of responsibility that fell on him for a good/bad experience. Nor do I doubt that 4e will continue this trend. This is, however, subjectively good, not absolutey good, which was the point I was seeking to make.

Attribute Check versus Defence sounds very little different from Attribute Check versus Difficulty Class to me, just increased codification.



And 3'rd edition's rules were not significantly simplified. The rules were made clearer and easier to understand, certainly, but Wizards' didn't cut away large sections of the rules and leave them with much less complex alternatives.

I don't think that Mark said they were, or did I miss it?



Go is a better example than Chess, in this case. Chess has different kinds of pieces, Go doesn't, but Go is (largely because it's played on a larger board and the number of pieces increases with time rather than decreases) much harder for a computer to analyze.

Neither are actually good analogies for an RPG. The function of the Players and Game Master in an RPG is quite different from their repective functions in a strategy game and I think that has a bearing on what role the rules play. Rather than the game being primarily a function of the rules, RPGs have the potential to be narratives that occasionally need to be subject to fixed rules.

EvilElitest
2008-03-01, 11:45 AM
And you're willing to accept two more possibilities than a lot of people were. Frankly, number 1 on your list is the most likely possibility. He's like a little kid on christmas morning, unwrapping a shiny new toy that hasn't had it's luster dimmed when it's flaws finally become visible after some hard use.

Then he shouldn't be a reviewer. A bloke with 4 months of play who can't even find the most minor flaws is not a good reviewer, as he certainly hasn't analyzed the material properly. If he is so enthusiastic he can't review objectively and let us, the people who are desperately waiting for information know the flaws of the still incomplete game (they would be flaws, WOTC hasn't finished making the game yet) then he shouldn't be reviewing this. Any bloke can go "It is the best, most amazing system ever" when talking about any product, when i read a review, i want real answers. He also apparently didn't understand 3E at all which makes me extremely weary (It is worth noting, WOTC didn't understand how 3E was played, as Tippy showed) which shows he certainly lacks the credentials to be a game reviewer. I want Emperor Tippy Play testing that




And quite frankly, having no complaints is perfectly reasonable if you're excited enough about the possibilities of something. It doesn't mean the review is unbiased. What it does mean is that if you're also very excited about fourth edition, you probably won't have any complaints initially either.

1) He is reviewing it, he is hired as a play tester. If he isn't able to look at the game objectively, then he shouldn't be reviewing it. If all he really has to say is that it is amazing in every way, then you can't expect people to believe that, it is absurd
2) even if he wasn't a review, he has had four months, i really doubt he and his friends found anything wrong with the game.



And really, people, are you all so wrapped up in your personal opinions that you cannot even conceive of an honest, thought-out review of something just because it contradicts your preconceived notions?
It isn't a review, because a good reviewer shouldn't get caught up with such simple excitement and play it critically. He hasn't demonstrated that ability, it is like somebody who watched the Eragon movie and came out going "That was awesome, everybody should watch it, it was awesome"
And then you watch it and your brain implodes


And yes i can previce of such a review, but this one certainly isn't that


Also can somebody link the other mentioned review? I want to see if they are exactly the same in the negative sense
from
EE

AKA_Bait
2008-03-01, 11:48 AM
And really, people, are you all so wrapped up in your personal opinions that you cannot even conceive of an honest, thought-out review of something just because it contradicts your preconceived notions?

Of course we are. This is the internet.


Neither are actually good analogies for an RPG. The function of the Players and Game Master in an RPG is quite different from their repective functions in a strategy game and I think that has a bearing on what role the rules play. Rather than the game being primarily a function of the rules, RPGs have the potential to be narratives that occasionally need to be subject to fixed rules.

Agreed. Additionally, games like Go and Chess the players are adversaries and the rules function to grant a specific win condition (checkmate) and rules to adjudicate how the players can achieve the win condition. D&D is not adversarial in the same way. In D&D the rules function as a tool for DM's and players to aide in keeping the narrative internally consistant. The only 'win' conditions are 'I had fun'.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-03-01, 11:51 AM
Hmm...perhaps those who insist that it's rediculous he hasn't found any flaws should remember that he will speak of the bad things he's found in the THIRD article? Maybe we should just shut the jawbox 'till we can read that?

EvilElitest
2008-03-01, 12:13 PM
Hmm...perhaps those who insist that it's rediculous he hasn't found any flaws should remember that he will speak of the bad things he's found in the THIRD article? Maybe we should just shut the jawbox 'till we can read that?

I generally find it to be bad form to give us two whole articles of good and one of bad separately, they should be intermixed

But we will see
from
EE

bosssmiley
2008-03-01, 02:45 PM
I read the 'review' cited by the OP and the impression I for one got was "puff piece", or possibly "paid-for word-of-mouth viral marketing". The 'criticisms to follow in the third article' thing is an instance of the classic shyster's technique of spinning perceptions by getting favourable news out first. It doesn't predispose me to think well of the author's objectivity.

I'm still going to wait until I've seen actual non-NDA'ed *playtest* reviews of 4th Ed. from RPGnet and the like. Until I see critical feedback from someone who has paid their own money for the product (not got it free as a reviewer or playtester) it's all just marketing. :smallannoyed:

Indon
2008-03-01, 03:24 PM
I don't think that Mark said they were, or did I miss it?
No, you're right, JadedDM said that. I'd apparently forgotten to quote or address him. Oops.


Neither are actually good analogies for an RPG. The function of the Players and Game Master in an RPG is quite different from their repective functions in a strategy game and I think that has a bearing on what role the rules play. Rather than the game being primarily a function of the rules, RPGs have the potential to be narratives that occasionally need to be subject to fixed rules.

Yes, but all RPG's are equal in that respect, so given the choice between an RPG with simplistic, uninteresting rules and one with more complex and interesting ones, there's no inherent reason not to choose the more interesting system if that's what you want in a gaming system.

AKA_bait - the analogy is in the complexity of the rules compared to the complexity of use of the rules - it's quite applicable in that sense, I'd say.

Matthew
2008-03-01, 05:22 PM
No, you're right, JadedDM said that. I'd apparently forgotten to quote or address him. Oops.

I think that you sread him as well. He wasn't saying that D20 simplified 2e (if that's what you thought) he said that part of the advertising campaign was that D20 would be simpler than 2e. I don't think positive rules complexity was what he meant, though, but the negative rules complexity [i.e. the stuff that just makes it difficult to play]. AD&D could be considered 'difficult', as the rules were sometimes contradictory and often unclear (as an aside, figuring out which ones are contradictory and which ones are unclear can actually be quite fun).

Basically, if I understand him correctly, he was saying that they just reset the learning curve.



Yes, but all RPG's are equal in that respect, so given the choice between an RPG with simplistic, uninteresting rules and one with more complex and interesting ones, there's no inherent reason not to choose the more interesting system if that's what you want in a gaming system.

Okay, that's a bit convoluted, so let me see if I can straighten it out (as much for my own understanding as anything else).

1) The kind of rules desirable from an RPG are subjective [agree]
2) A complex rules system can be interesting and desirable [agree]
3) A simple rules system can be uninteresting and still desirable [agree]

To go back to the original point of contention:



Chess. QED.

Seriously. Having a poor rules system is a bad thing, not a good one; a simple rules system is better than a complex one for emergent complexity and for gameplay purposes.

And in any event, the system doesn't look any SIMPLER so much as it is more logical, coherent, and consistant. Alternity probably takes this to the greatest extreme of any game, and it is the best RPG system I've encountered. There are tons of options in this game, and indeed, it looks like there are much more options core in this edition than in 3.5, and it is no longer that spellcasters have massively more options than non-spellcasters, which was always a moronic system.

RPGs [I]can be like the game described above, but they don't have to be. What is being described, to my mind, is a game like Chess or Go, where you learn the rules and develop different levels of strategic or tactical thinking based on those rules. An RPG that is played as a mutual story telling experience and occasionally governed by rules doesn't use the 'system' in the same way. The function of the rules in that sort of game is to determine the outcome of actions that have the potential for both success and failure and mostly independently of the Players and DM [i.e. the actions that the group have agreed not to determine between themselves or leave up to the DM to arbitrate].

So, for instance, in one RPG there may be no rule for persuading somebody to do something, it's simply left up to the group or GM to determine. In another, you may have a Persuade Skill and a set of rules that determine exactly how it is used to get an NPC to do something. Both approaches are valid, but they aren't the same and some groups will prefer one over the other.

Indon
2008-03-01, 05:33 PM
An RPG that is played as a mutual story telling experience occasionally governed by rules doesn't use the 'system' in the same way. All the rules are there for is to determine the outcome of actions that have the potential for success or failure [i.e. the actions that the group have agreed not to determine between them or leave up to the DM to arbitrate].

In which case a system which is too simplistic simply fails in other ways - when that guy in the review grinned and pulled that stunt, the system's response was, "improvise a power". It's really easy... and it's probably the system's response to pretty much anything that happens in combat.

What if his player had instead said, "I cut the chandelier rope, bringing it down on their heads!" How does the DM deal with that within the scope of the power system. Probably something vs. Reflex, but what's the attack roll of a falling object? Is that in the books, or do we just make something up? Things that can't be well-described as powers end up putting you right back to improvisation, only instead of 3'rd edition which had myriad minor rules to use as guidelines for various things, when you've left the power system you're probably alone, in the not-covered-by-the-simplistic-rules-of-4'th-edition universe, which may be relatively small... or it may be very large indeed.

SamTheCleric
2008-03-01, 05:47 PM
On the topic of "objective"... Aren't all opinions (and thus reviews) subjective? No where did he claim he was making an objective observation... he just reviewed it in his words.

It may very well be a "puff piece" or "paid for marketing"... but nothing I see leads me to believe that. I read it and see someone opinion, no different than those reviewers that think Hana Montana are the be-all end-all of music or that the Yankees are actually any good. :smallwink:

Matthew
2008-03-01, 05:51 PM
In which case a system which is too simplistic simply fails in other ways - when that guy in the review grinned and pulled that stunt, the system's response was, "improvise a power". It's really easy... and it's probably the system's response to pretty much anything that happens in combat.

Then the question becomes what is 'too simplistic' and how does it fail? What are the criteria for failure? D20 had almost exactly the same response to unusual circumstances. Roll 1D20, add your Attribute Modifier and compare to difficulty. AD&D had at least two different ways of doing the same thing. In the end, it all comes down to assigning a probability that everybody is comfortable with in the context of the game. Constructing a complex system for calculating that probability is desirable for some and a waste of time to others.



What if his player had instead said, "I cut the chandelier rope, bringing it down on their heads!" How does the DM deal with that within the scope of the power system. Probably something vs. Reflex, but what's the attack roll of a falling object? Is that in the books, or do we just make something up? Things that can't be well-described as powers end up putting you right back to improvisation, only instead of 3'rd edition which had myriad minor rules to use as guidelines for various things, when you've left the power system you're probably alone, in the not-covered-by-the-simplistic-rules-of-4'th-edition universe, which may be relatively small... or it may be very large indeed.

Maybe, the degree to which the system legislates for events is certainly of interest.



On the topic of "objective"... Aren't all opinions (and thus reviews) subjective? No where did he claim he was making an objective observation... he just reviewed it in his words.

All opinions are subjective, but to varying degrees. Statements, however, can be made that are 'absolute', and if people accept them as absolute when they are in fact subjective, then they will likely end up in fairly angry arguments. As far as I can tell, that is the core of most 'edition wars'. Somebody says "X is absolutely better than Y for these reasons", instead of "I prefer X to Y for these reasons" and cannot accept the possibility that the other person really does prefer Y (often looking for other explanations, such as the person in question is backwards, set in their ways or unenlightened).

SamTheCleric
2008-03-01, 05:56 PM
Here's part 3.


Hola all. Massawyrm here.

With the rebalancing of all the classes, WotC has given a static, steady progression to leveling up. No longer are there any plateau levels like level 5 (when you get Flight and Fireball) in which players get access to something radically more powerful than what they possessed just a single level before – and no longer hamstringing DM’s by what monsters are effective at one level and not the next. Monsters are now also scaled the same way. There are no more monsters that while being a specific level, possess abilities that make them completely inaccessible as opponents to lower levels. Sure, a 10th level monster will still decimate a first level party – but not because they lack the spells or abilities to so much as touch it. They’ll get their ass kicked because it is simply far more badass than they are. But there are no more monsters that a DM cannot throw against his players because they don’t have the right spell or equipment to fight it.

This opens up a whole world of opportunities and possible combinations. But more importantly, it also allows the quick and easy creation of your own monster stat blocks. Every monster is built with a simple series of equations in which you plug in their level and modify them by their role in combat and get exact, solid scores for their Hit points, damage output and defenses. Of course that doesn’t mean that every 2 nd level monster will have the same amount of hit points and do the same damage with an attack. It takes various factors into account, but if creature of a certain level should be doing five points of damage on average he could do one attack that does 5 straight damage, have an attack that does 1d8+1 or two attacks that do 1d4 a piece. You won’t notice that average of 5 damage, but it will be there hidden in the mechanics.

It takes roughly 5 minutes to stat out a new critter. Is there something missing from the MM that you love? Odds are the answer is a BIG YES (more on that in a bit.) Well, stat it out.

The first thing you’ll notice about the monsters is that they broken down into roles and toughness. The roles are pretty self explanatory and WtC has been all about talking about them. These are things like Lurkers (monsters that hide and attack from shadows or while invisible), artillery (ranged attackers), brutes (big damage dealers), soldiers (tanks), and controllers (spellcasters and creatures with abilities that allow them to move players around or hinder their movement.) A good monster mob has a healthy mix of two or three of these types. This isn’t so much of a game altering change as much as it is just a great system for eyeballing what a given encounter needs or what a creatures stats look like.

The big change is really the new classifications of monster power level. You’ve got Minions, Elite and Solo types as extra modifiers. Elites are just pretty much twice as tough as your average monster. There’s both listings for Elite monsters and rules for beefing one up to Elite (for example having a group of 3 Ogres led by a super tough Ogre Chief.) Solos are pretty self explanatory – they’re meant to be fought alone or only with a little help. These are your dragons, your aspects of deities, or super tough large monsters. Solo’s have proven to be the trickiest to work with as you have to choose just the right point in the adventuring day to unleash them on your party. Too late in the day and they don’t have enough powerful daily abilities left to take it out – too early and they have too man, stacking status effect after status effect on it to the point of silliness. You haven’t encountered 4E frustration until you’ve put a Red Dragon as an early encounter and watched him hobbled, slowed, dazed and covered in ongoing damage before he gets to round 2.

But my favorite addition so far is minions. These are super weak monsters that amount to an average of 4 monsters to a character of equal level. But this by no means is to say that they don’t pose any kind of threat. Quite often they can do much more damage when attacking en masse. These are your zombie hordes or your weak demon spawn and the like. Our very first game began in a tavern, with a brawl (yes, the cliché) but was interrupted by a woman bursting through the door screaming. Two zombies rushed in after her and tore her apart. Our brave fighter rushed forward, hacked them to pieces and threw open the door ready for 2 or 3 more. Only to discover 2 dozen zombies shambling toward her.

Overkill? Not in 4E. 24 Zombie Rotters are a standard encounter for 6 level 1 PCs. You don’t HAVE to run minion fights that large, but man are they a good time. They make your PCs feel highly effective as they drop zombie after zombie beneath their feet, but also prove tactically challenging as they have to fight off swarms with completely different tactics. It also lets you have a little fun by replacing several of the minions with a regular fighter type of the same monster. Why are there only 13 zombies this time? Because one of them is a level 3 nasty. Guess which one it is before it eats your cleric.

Most of your time as Dungeon master will be spent on two things: planning the story of your game and planning the monster and tactic selection. It really is challenging. 4E fights really have a different feel. It’s not about running across some random fight anymore. It’s about planning, it’s about strategy, it’s about the fun or frustration of the big beat down. You are encouraged to get exotic – and that equals fun for all.

So I’ve been incredibly positive up until now. I know there’s many of you out there who have got to be wondering if there’s anything about 4E that I don’t like. Yes. There is, but it’s almost all entirely nit picky stuff about what they chose to release. Personally, I’m just a wee bit annoyed that certain monsters were held back for other monster manuals – especially in lieu of the fact that there are quite a few new editions to the core monsters.

Dungeon & Dragon Miniatures fans (like myself) will be happy to know that several of your favorite minis have been added to the core book. The awesome Boneclaw is core, the Kruthik has worked its way in, and Flameskulls have two different incarnations (one Heroic and one Epic.) But there are no metallic dragons in the core MM. And while Metallics have for the longest time been GOOD creatures, the new 4E lack of standard alignment allows you to be pitted against ANYTHING as long as there’s a good reason for it. No more ALWAYS LG means a crazed, deluded or simply ornery Silver dragon could actually be an opponent for the party. But not on release it can’t. The lack of certain classic giants like the Frost Giants is a bit lame – they include Death Giants, but not Frost? But don’t worry, Fire, Hill and Storm all make appearances. It’s not that there are bad choices and aditions – it’s just that you have to ask why a whole section on Kruthiks but not one on the metallics. I’ll trade you know. It’s not called Dungeons and Kruthiks.

Then there are dragons. First of all, dragons ROCK. Every chromatic dragon fights and plays much differently than each and every other type now and they are ALL nasty. Every last one of them. AND, just to sweeten the deal, there are now real, honest to god dragon encounters set as low as level 3. Yes, you can actually fight a white dragon in a tough fight at level 1. That’s pretty damned awesome, once again deserving its title Dungeons & Dragons. So what’s wrong with dragons? Well, for starters, there is longer any dragons smaller than LARGE size. To many of you that won’t mean anything. But to those of us who have collected Dungeons and dragon Minis from way back in harbinger – we’ve just gotten screwed. I have a whole drawer of small and medium dragons that no longer serve any use. I mean, I guess I can paint them and use them as drakes. But not as dragons. Especially since many of them weren’t exactly easy to come by. That got me a little pissy.

Which leads to the one glaring problem some folks will have with 4E. It is very dependant upon maps, terrain and miniatures. That’s great for guys like me with a closet full of toys. But for others, especially those who like to play much more esoteric games all through discussion rather than using maps and positioning – they’re going to find it a lot harder to covert over to that style of play than 3.5. Most abilities and classes are built around their existence on a map grid. And a lot of the abilities just don’t translate to the abstract. I’m not certain why percentage of players out there still play this way – but they’re going to have the strongest argument against converting to 4E.

But for me these really are some minor gripes compared to the sheer number of mechanics that 4E has fixed. There are no more wallflowers in combats. No more totaling up each players loot to make sure they are equally matched to the monsters they’ll be facing. No more resting before the party needs to. No more “Why can’t I buy this magic item anywhere”. No more broken min/maxing. No more all human parties because the free feat and skill point are worth more. There are a thousand little things that are streamlined, that are better. And once people have had the chance to sit down with it, all the prerelease gripes will go away. It really is like digging into 1st Ed all over again.

This weekend WotC is taking the muzzle off of us playtesters, so over the next few days and weeks, sites will be flooded with all the details. I’m dying to see how closely other groups experiences match my own – but I’m also confident that we’re about to see a lot of positivity out there. This is a great game. Whether you’re a long time player or an online gamer looking for a little more face time with your friends, 4E has a lot to offer the table top community. It’s a revelation and a revolution. And it’s gong to change the way you play forever.

Man I can’t wait to have these in hardback.

Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

Massawyrm

Matthew
2008-03-01, 06:06 PM
Ah, he's a D&D Miniatures fan. That actually explains a lot. :smallbiggrin:

Interesting that he is using the "it's just like 1e AD&D all over again" line. That's the exact marketing slogan WotC used for D20, or so I'm told. Why not just play 1e AD&D again if that's what you want? Well, maybe he means it's the same thrill or something. :smallwink:

Interestingly, Mike Mearls may have recently said on a D&D blog that if he wasn't playing 4e he would be playing AD&D 1e. Link (http://doomsdaygames.proboards3.com/index.cgi?board=generalgreyhawk&action=display&thread=1080399803). Unverified, but sounds like part of the marketing.

purple gelatinous cube o' Doom
2008-03-01, 06:10 PM
After reading (the first part at least) My issue with what he's saying is that he says 4E is much better in certain ways than 3.5 and much simpler, but doesn't seem to really go in depth about anything. he doesn't state, how or why said mechanics/items and what not are better, just that they are. I would have liked to see him state specific examples of how a battle is better and faster, but he just says they are. The big one I noticed was how he stated that no matter what, any character can contribute to a battle, but he doesn't tell me how that happens. he doesn't give me any of the nitty gritty that I would like to know, and that doesn't give me a good feeling.

Artanis
2008-03-01, 06:10 PM
I look forward to seeing the "site-flooding details" he mentioned.

EvilElitest
2008-03-01, 06:13 PM
And from this guys comments, i don't think he even understands the nature of 3E really
from
EE

Azerian Kelimon
2008-03-01, 06:20 PM
Well, at least we DID get a big 4e con out of this review. Miniature combat is Dude Not Funny for me, nad I'm sure it'll be a Big No for others. Guess PbP will have to use OpenRPG and the like.

Ozymandias
2008-03-01, 06:33 PM
And from this guys comments, i don't think he even understands the nature of 4E really
from
EE

How can you say that, when he has so much more experience actually playing it than you? It seems to me that the 'nature' of 4E will only be revealed through actual play.

And yeah, miniature dependent is lame. Maybe a computer-based graphical program could be made (freeware, hopefully) to alleviate it.

EvilElitest
2008-03-01, 06:56 PM
How can you say that, when he has so much more experience actually playing it than you? It seems to me that the 'nature' of 4E will only be revealed through actual play.

And yeah, miniature dependent is lame. Maybe a computer-based graphical program could be made (freeware, hopefully) to alleviate it.

1. Ironically enough, i wanted so say he didn't understand 3E
2. That being said, he hasn't show us the skills of a good reviewer but that isn't the point
from
EE

Ozymandias
2008-03-01, 07:34 PM
1. Ironically enough, i wanted so say he didn't understand 3E
2. That being said, he hasn't show us the skills of a good reviewer but that isn't the point
from
EE

Firstly, that's not really ironic (It's like rain on your wedding day).

Secondly, objectivity isn't necessarily the mark of a good reviewer, if that's what you're implying. A 'review' is supposed to over an overview of something. He gave an overview of his experience playtesting. I think it's nice. Sure, you should take it with a grain of salt, but that's always true.

(I do not condone over-consumption of sodium chloride.)