4Edition. Do you like it?

[alhoon]

OK, so far about half like 4th edition, about half don't. And from those that do like it, about half like 3rd best.

And still, most comments are pro-4th.

[Scipion_Emilien]

Well I'm currently mitigated in front of 4e.

I really like the new combat system and rituals casting. In 3e, it was too often easy to won a fight or circumvent a plot with one spell. I really prefer the out-of combat resolution of 4e rather than the one of 3e. It lead to more roleplay and have PC to actually do something instead of rolling or cast a spell.

And well I didn't like the complexity to which 3e had come that could make the game a nightmare for the DM.

On the other hand, I feel that they threw out of the windows world cohenrency and versimilitude. In a setting like Ravenloft, I could look at the lvl of the NPC and then scale the lvl of the PC toward which feeling we want. Now in 4e, they simply are no NPC statted. In brief the game told you that the power of the NPC is what you want toward the PC. 4e is not anchored in the game world.

I think in conclusion that 4th is directly in the line of the others AD&D game, it play more or less like 2e, 3rd edition was the exception with all of his options and I am now asking the question to myself, do I want to play a well-rounded D&D or a sandbox RPG with all his mechinal defaults?

[alhoon]

To it's defence, 4E isn't riddled with mistakes or overly-complex rules like 2nd edition was, although yes, they play the same.

[Scipion_Emilien]

To it's defence, 4E isn't riddled with mistakes or overly-complex rules like 2nd edition was, although yes, they play the same.

This is exactly why 4e give me this feeling of "new D&D" while 3rd is in my opinion the oddball edition.

[Troile]

Yes, but 3rd/3.5 (or 2nd, or OD&D) was better

Those editions still exist.

[A G Thing]

I honestly gave 4th a try... I played and ran several games and I must say I love some of the additions to the rules... I love minions, I love combining redundant skills, but after that it seemed to have been stripped or oversimplified. I don't want to say that all of it was bad. It does inspire tactical thinking, and even teamwork, but that is not my only enjoyment of the hobby. I had fun, and when I played it was as seriously as I have any other game. When I ran, I poured hours of work into it every week to make each friday as good as possible. I played several games to 3rd to 5th level ranges, and I ran one that went all the way to 12th. I did on some parts enjoy the experience.

I love roleplay more than combat... I am good at both and yet I would rather spend an hour in suspense than ever actually face the monster. I don't care if my character is tough or weak, only that they are a representation of what I wish to portray. 4th had another point that intrigued me, and while skill challenges seemed promising, they in all actuallity for the games I was in and ran, got buried in the combat encounters. Combat was the main focus of character creation, and while some social considerations in roleplay where there it was rather flat in execution. I know roleplay is player motivated more than other parts but, I must be inspired, and have a world to build around. I feel I still did well when in the 4th edition settings and even the homebrew of myself and others I did my absolute best I believe.

Still perhaps it was my fault, perhaps it was my groups, but in the strictest measure of the system... I did not enjoy it because I could never hold my attachment to the world or characters. The system is so cookie cutter and such I see characters as pegs that must fit into holes. I felt and this time I say with experience like I was playing WoW and just hitting buttons to make my character act. I can't speak for the others but my group is also considering going back to 3.5, but they still at times wish to continue with 4th... Of course now that I am in Michigan that is little good to me except to keep track of and hope when back in Tennesse to play in 3.5 again.

Now in 3rd/3.5 there where horrible bogs of rules that simply overwhelmed the players and DM and I for one have been trying to find ways to speed up combat in the system and balance several issues such as magic item dependance that still exists in the 4th edition... I have many ideas that I plan to test next time I am able to fix 3/3.5... But I have little desire to do such in 4th. I can only say that with all the detail that came with 3rd/3.5 came inspiration. "The Devil is in the Details" and I have no problem scaleling encounters or even awarding experience. The worlds are crafted and the parts to make original worlds are at my fingertips.

So in all honesty I love 3rd/3.5 like I learned to love previous editions. Like a movie or book that I rewatch over and over. It moved and inspired me, and my imagination did not have to struggle so hard to make the worlds portrayed and envisioned realised in my minds eye. 4th never made that easy, or familiar, and while I was hesitent with 3rd at first I can say it proved its self despite it's flaws to meet these criteria. 4th had it's good moments but it is like the action film that hits big in the summer but is forgotten shortly after. Just not my cup of tea!

[alhoon]

A G Thing:
I feel the same way. So I play 4th when I want an easy, relaxed game and I play 3rd when I want characters that, well... are characters in a P&P game instead of characters in a computer game.

As about rule complexity: I play 3rd for loooong so I have worked out the rules.

As for minions: great idea... I use them in 3rd edition too. Increase AC and saves by 4, reduce hp to 1 (succesful saves = 0 damage) and that's it. Oh, and they give 1/6th of XP. 6 of them are considered 1 creature of their original CR.
Don't use them out of proportion though. While a hill giant minion is effectively CR 2... He can smash 2 2nd level chars in one blow. And the remaining 2 chars may (or may not) kill him with a single dart or magic missile.
NOTE: Don't tell the PCs who is the minion. As I said, magic missile takes out minions automatically.
NOTE2: Well, the 1/6th is for high CR monsters obviously, where the PCs have lot's of area attacks etc. A goblin 1st lvl rogue with 1 hp instead of 4 and AC+4 is actually tougher than a 1st lvl rogue goblin...

[Kaitou Kage]

Now, is this a flaw in the game? Not really, as the rules don't denote the playstyle, official content, or products. Really, I think WotC is just staffed with people who prefer straight dungeon crawls and simple adventures with interesting combats.
It wouldn't take much to have a completely combatless Dungeon adventure with role-playing, mystery, puzzles, skill challenges, and the like. There's just no one on staff to write it.

Thank you for saying something like this. People keep saying, "there's so much less roleplaying in 4e" and I'm going, "Wait, what?" The only real roleplaying difference between 3e and 4e is that, as Isabella said, you can't cast Glibness right before the encounter to make it completely trivial.

I've been running a 4e game that has rather heavy RP and rather light combat for a while now (the same one Neo mentioned earlier) and I don't see any difference in practice. All you're doing for "roleplaying encounters" in either edition is talking at some NPC and then rolling a die if needed. So unless people mean something else by "roleplaying," I'm not seeing how this is a valid criticism. There are even powers for many classes that give your character boosts to the roleplaying skill rolls. Maybe it looks different on paper, but it works exactly the same.

As far as customization goes, there's nothing stopping you from customizing. It's easier now than it ever was since game balance is much, much easier to maintain. Or just take an existing class and "reflavor" it to suit your needs. I don't see the issue with each class having a bazillion combat-related powers. D&D has always had a heavy combat component -- Something like half the PHB and DMG is about "roll play," probably half the spells in the game are combat-relevant spells, and combat has traditionally been "the" way in the books to level up your characters. I realize this varies from DM to DM. However, if you're seeking a combat-lite, RP-heavy game, why are you using D&D in the first place? There are better heavy-RP systems out there.

I think 4e is just fine, in both the roleplaying and the combat areas. Combat is definitely better and more fluid than 3e. Roleplaying doesn't feel any different.

All that being said, I don't hate 3e at all. I don't think 4e is any better or any worse. I'm generally fine with playing 3e games, though I think 4e is much, much more fun for everyone involved in the game. 3e is more complex, sure, but I think that's more of a fault of trying to convert and upgrade the old system to an easier-to-roll format than anything. It still has its merits.

[Zettaijin]

Thank you for saying something like this. People keep saying, "there's so much less roleplaying in 4e" and I'm going, "Wait, what?" The only real roleplaying difference between 3e and 4e is that, as Isabella said, you can't cast Glibness right before the encounter to make it completely trivial.

Actually, one of the main issues with regards to roleplaying, and one that may get overlooked, is character knowledge versus player knowledge. Just because Bob Roleplayer knows a thing or two about basic chemistry, doesn't mean Bob Roleplayer's character does as well.

To approximate character knowledge and properly quantify it so that D&D remains a game and not just free form improvisation, various skill and skill testing mechanisms have been put into place - or should I say have been adapted from pre-existing combat mechanisms and modified, expanded, as well as ignored or reinstated (as the case may be) over time.

These were meant to allow characters to have skills the player did not possess him or herself and facilitate the resolution of certain situations with optimal fairness and promptness (no need for a show and tell session or long winded lecture every time wants to tie a knot or sail a boat).

You have to forgive the makers of D&D and their successors for fumbling with these said mechanisms, if anything, the fact that every edition has seen revised rules for skills and skill testing attests to the fact that these simply do not work for everyone or for every situation.

This said, I believe the "4e doesn't promote role playing" crowd may simply be angry that combat is improved to a point where it becomes the star while non-combat situations are still a headache due to the thin line between game mechanisms for non-combat situations and the part played by "role playing" (player output based solely on their own acting abilities).

[Kaitou Kage]

I understand and agree with what you've said. Even then, I don't think 4e is any better or worse than 3e. The 4e system for knowledge, especially, is almost the same.

Mechanics in pure roleplaying is difficult to do. I do think, however, that some systems do it better than others. D&D in my opinion is not and never has been especially stellar at managing "social combat." It's workable but pretty clunky.

[HuManBing]

I voted. It's very important to vote.

[WolfKook]

I voted. It's very important to vote.

?????

What are you on, HMB?

[Nathan of the FoS]

I voted. It's very important to vote.

?????

What are you on, HMB?

Irony.

[Zettaijin]

Irony is a dead scene. Winners don't use drugs!

This said, Kaitou, I was agreeing with you - in a roundabout way. I just wanted to add the small caveat that role playing wasn't strictly an issue of interaction between sentient creatures (those represented by the players, the others by the DM) but also includes the various skill testing mechanics which make up the player character's actual abilities beyond glibness of tongue (which, through charisma score checks and various skills, spells and other factors also has a mechanical aspect).

And yeah, D&D is and will probably always be clunky at best when it comes to handling mechanical/quantifiable aspects of role playing.

[Dr Bloodworth]

Allow me to preface this with saying I've yet to run a full campaign with 4e. I didn't care for 4th very much when we did a little trial run. However, now that I think on it and have had more time to tinker with the system and come up with some things, I find it to be just as good as 3rd or any previous in what can be done.

Example: at first, I was rather disappointed with the stupid changes made to some monster's backgrounds. Now I find it is really a simple matter to get back the old feel of them (honestly, Jester's 4e Ravenloft document making old style stakable vampires and such was a big part of this). I like that the system seems much simpler and streamlined from the DM/world creation end of things, though granted not so much from the keeping track of player abilities end of things.

I do just wish certain things would be explained more for the creative DM, mainly where it comes to assigning levels to many of the magical items, poisons, diseases, etc., but also with a more definite conversion system between previous editions and this one. But those may be WotC proprietary type things.

I was also discussing with some of my gamer buddies that I think people on many, many forums are getting caught by confusing 4e with commentary on WotC. I'll leave it at that and not get into it too much further. It's just that disliking WotC =/= disliking 4e.

4e's fine, I don't know if I like where WotC is going with it and other things re: their philosophy, but that's the beauty of jumping into a system early: I can change that easily.[/i]