v4 D&D pros vs. cons

[TMZ_Cinoros]

Here is my list of what I like and dislike about 4th edition. A lot of these are the same things people have been harping about. A lot of people may disagree with that I'm saying here. I am trying to cover a lot of ground, so I can't be as detailed in my points as I would like, so if someone disagrees with me, mention the specific point and I can go into greater detail about what I mean.

Pros of 4th edition versus 3.5:

• Is actually balanced. 3.5 was amazingly unbalanced. For example, compare Wizards or CoDzilla (Clerics/Druids) to fighters, rangers, and monks. In 4th edition, everyone is pretty much on the same level in terms of power.
  
  
• There are very few traps (terrible choices, not the disarming traps). In 3.5, there were a lot of traps, like weapon focus and toughness. Traps that were intentionally placed there, if Monty Cook's explanations are to be believed. Now, the biggest problem a power/feat can have is not synergizing properly with the rest of the character. Very few feats are intrinsically bad. Of course, this might have more to do with the power level of feats being more normalized.
  
  
• Standardization. There is much better balance in terms of player character creation, and the monsters CRs are much more accurate (baring some exceptions, like Needlefang Drake Swarms). Also, changing the standard player to monster ratio from 4:1 to 1:1 provides much greater granularity of power adjustment, making it much easier for the DM to scale an encounter and make it just right. All of these mean that the average 4th edition experience for a player is better than the average 3rd edition experience, and that 4th edition experiences for a player are more uniform, rather than being the hit or miss that I often experienced in 3rd edition.
  
  
• Reduction of complexity in character creation. In 3.5, I felt like I needed to spend a huge amount of effort in order to make a good character. In 4th edition, it does not require nearly as much effort, due to the decrease in importance of feats, items, and alternative class features. Of course, the lack of splat books might be a part of the reason, but I feel as though 4th edition core is vastly less complicated in character creation than 3.5 core
  
  
• Streamlined play. Battle is much more fun in 4th edition. Everyone has a lot of options, more than the typical melee character (like a non-optimized fighter) in 3.5 which could only hit things with a sword. Also, the many simplifications and changes make combat go quicker and smoother.

Cons of 4th edition versus 3.5:

• Weird abstractions/simplifications. I think this is where people say "Oh, D&D is a MorePig!" There are lots and lots of weird things that just don't make sense in terms of an internally consistent world. Things like cubic dragon breaths, diagonals being the same distance as horizontals/verticals, being unable to sell mundane equipment, magic items selling for 1/5th value instead of half, encumbrance rules (being heavily encumbered automatically occupies both of your hands, so you *technically* cannot carry a sword/shield, and dragging more than your normal weight will slow you, so that horses can carry 237 lbs and drag 1,187 lbs, but when they drag more than 237 lbs, like a cart, they can only move 10 ft a round), basically everything breaking down when you consider height. An entire thread around this could be created, so I won't list more.
  
  Some of these things were design decisions to make things easier in combat. Most of them feel like the designers either didn't think things through all the way (encumbrance), or failed to read an applicable rule.
  
  
• Sloppy editing. For some reason, the 4th edition core books feel a lot more sloppy than 3.5 core. I could list dozens and dozens of examples of things that have not yet been errataed that are either not clear or don't work (and if I really wanted to, I'm certain I could find at least 100 items in the Adventurer's vault that need errata). Things like heavily encumbered dwarfs who are not slowed, yet still have both their hands taken up by their heavy load. A more thorough explanation of what you apply a weapon/implements enhancement bonus to (the best explanation in the PHB is "A magic weapon adds an enhancement bonus to attack
  rolls and damage rolls, ... This bonus does not apply to any ongoing damage or other damage that might be applied to the attack." p. 232, which is not very clear on what "other damage" means and is very very easily overlooked). About half of the conjurations simply do not work as one would expect due to poorly/incompletely worded attack/effect entries. Again, the list goes on and on.
  
  This annoys me a lot more than in 3rd edition because the presentation of the rules is a lot more formalized than in 3rd edition (power descriptions are strictly formatted, versus the spell descriptions of 3rd edition that seemed to encourage more flexibility in DM adjudication of the spell by describing more than "here are the precise effects." Presenting the rules in a more formal manner implicitly means more standardization, but lack of clarity opposes this.
  
  
• Reduction of DM adjudication. This is kind of similar to what I was just talking about. Yes, the books say that a DM can change anything they want, but at the same time the presentation of the rules discourage adjudication and encourage simply applying the stated effects. The removal of open ended spells like Wish and the formalization of the effects gives less room (by default, unless the DM overrides the rules) for DM adjudication. For example, there are no spells with the flexibility of, say, 3.5's Grease. A good 4th edition example is the Goblin Hexer, which has a zone that is flavored as a cloud of dust, that creates a cloud of dust that provides concealment for only its allies. The one way nature of the power makes NO SENSE compared to the flavor (unless you add in flavor that is not printed in the book). The presentation of the power seems to prevent clever uses, as it applies very specific penalties that are loosely related to but largely independent from the flavor.
  
  
• Items are incredibly weak. At least, the PHB ones. The Adventurer's Vault items are much stronger. But the items enhance the character, never overshadow character abilities. In previous editions, you could get a wand of fireball or other powerful item and completely dominate until it ran out of charges or something. Now, a strong item can only be used once a day. This increases balance, but it doesn't *feel* right to me. I WANT to be able to pick up an uber item and dominate for a short time. Instead, I am just intrinsically better than Also, there are no rules for item creation like there were in 3rd edition, which discourages custom items.
  
  Also, the 1 daily item power per mile stone (more uses at higher tiers) rule is completely nonsensical to me. I really do not see the problem with stocking up on daily usage items and using them all up. Worse, it makes the opportunity cost of the non-combat daily item powers from the Adventurer's Vault unnecessarily high. For example, I will never use the item that summons a mount for the day, as it means I do not get to use my sword's daily power.
  
  I should mention that a lot of people will disagree with me on this point, as many people would prefer that items should not overshadow a character. But, having weak magic items doesn't *feel* realistic to *me*.
  
  
• Magic Rituals are seriously gimped. Either there is a terrible gotcha that severely reduces the usability of a ritual, or the ritual's component cost is too high. For example, Hand of Fate only predicts the future for the next hour. If I am at a fork in the road, and there is a massive hoard of treasure on the left path two hours away and a Tarrasque on the right path two hours away, the Hand will go "lol, I dunno" when trying to determine which path has the greater reward. Another example, Hero's feast creates food for 5 medium creatures. For 35 gold. If I had 35 gp of material components, why don't I have 5 rations? Yet another example, Silence is useless, as it only reduces the perception check by 10, rather than making true silence. In my opinion, magic should be better or more convenient than doing something the mundane way.

In short, 4th edition is a great combat game. But it feels like there is a lot of verisimilitude missing. Any time you try to do something that the game designers did not forsee, there is almost always a big problem by RAW. I like 2nd edition a lot better as a D&D game (3rd edition feels like a bad compromise between 2nd edition and 4th edition, trying to do both realism and good gaming at the same time, but failing at both). I have a lot more I could say, but I'll stop now, as this post is already extremely long.