alexandraerin

I didn't get Tales of MU updated for Saturday until just a few minutes ago. My friends just got copies of D&D 4th edition and abducted me at d20-point for an all-day-and-night gaming session. My first impressions of the new version:

1) They're trying really hard to capture the MMORPG market.
2) Combat plays fast and snappy (assuming you've got your character's moves down) but with infinite variety, rules are less than robust in other areas.
3) As with any roleplaying game, how fun it is depends on the players and a flexible DM.

This is probably the biggest example of a "pure product" release. There was nothing wrong with 3rd edition that 4th edition fixes, except that it was losing ground against World of Warcraft and not selling as many new copies as when it first came out.* The core rulebooks, apart from resembling MMORPG play in its mechanics, notably don't involve very many non-combat abilities or abilities that would require roleplaying/human judgment to "mechanic" (no animal companions/mounts/cohorts/thingies, no paladins falling, etc.), which makes me wonder what they've got in the pipeline after D&D Insider (which looks awesome) is up and running... both in terms of electronic adaptations, and supplement books that will no doubt add back in some of the more popular deleted features... and make more money for WotC.

*(Note that I'm not criticizing them for doing this. We've all got to eat.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Posted by

nobodez.livejournal.com

Well, I've played exactly no 4th edition aside from the three hours of cold DMing I did on the 6th of June. From that one day, I have some limited experience, but some concrete opinions.

1) RP vs. Combat. My main problem with people that say "RP is hard in 4th edition" is that, aside from the non-combat encounter system, there isn't any real RP rules, which is exactly how I like it. Combat needs rules, RP should be just that.

2) MMO inspired rules. Considering MMOs are using D&D inspired rules, I'd say this is just a natural progression of things. And really, the main things is the idea of recharge on spells, attacks as "spells"/powers, and class equality. AE, you've said you like the leaving of Vancian magic behind, the attacks as spells/powers is just a way to achieve class equality.

3) New rulebooks every year. They've always done supplemental rules. This is nothing different, except now they've stated that new classes will only come out in PHBs or Campaign Player Guides, everything else will be supplements for existing classes. Also, Animal Companions/Mounts should be out in either Martila Power or Adventurer's Vault (not sure which one it is, but they talked about it in an article), so that's a short lived complaint at best. Also, I think it's only going to be a new PHB and MM every year, rather than all three books, since the DMG is just that, a guide for DMs.

4) Lack of options. I admit, the eight classes and eight races is a bit limiting, but remember, when 3rd edition came out, we didn't get a 12th class until the Psionics Handbook came out, and we only have seven races until Savage Species came out. Plus, the plan, as posted on their website, is for the edition to last at least the same eight years that the combined 3e/v.3.5 lasted, which means that they'll have sixty-four races and classes (assuming the same 8/8 per PHB spread) by 2016, and that's not counting the monstrous races from the Monster Manuals.

Posted by

alexandraerin.livejournal.com

The comparison to MMOs was an observation, not a complaint. I like how fast and snappy combat plays (when you've got your moves down... cheat sheets are a must, and the character sheet isn't great for this purpose on its own).

Although one thing I'm not crazy about: the "class equality" has more or less exacerbated one of my jokes about older editions: "The classes are Fighter, Other Fighter, Other Fighter, and Other Fighter." They all have different "flavors" to their fighting, but everybody's pretty much attacking for massive damage all the dang time.

Presumably this will improve a bit as you level up and start getting utility powers (we stopped our session as we were reaching level two), but it was a bit... jarring... to realize that, in essence, the replacement for Bard is called freaking WARLORD: the "cheerleader" support class who exists to buff the performance of others has gone from a musician and storyteller to somebody with the name "WAR" in their title. Granted, I like the class*, but I think it's a little... emblematic... of the new focus.

I'm going to play around a bit more before I start futzing with things, but I've already come up with tentative homebrew rules for making the classes a little more distinct. It's essentially extending their abilities or adding new ones (the basic gist of it is, each class gets some stunts they can spend healing surges on), so it will have the effect of making PCs slightly more powerful, but that might counter the problem of greater-than-minion NPCs being over HP'd.

Though I fully admit, as far as the HP thing goes, that we were floundering the most in the early encounters when we didn't have the tactics down... but the last battle of the night dragged on forever.

*Though that's a bizarre name to call it, as it kind of carries some specific connotations with it that aren't necessarily supported by any kind of framework... I mean, a Paladin isn't just a pious person who fights, it's an invested Paladin, but a character who is "of the Warlord class" is not necessarily going to be, in any appreciable fashion, a "Warlord". The fact that this puts it two letters away from another new core class is just bizarre. Why not call it "leader"? or "Tactician"?

My pet theory is that it started off as a joke: the "Warcrafter." And they ended up liking the class and kept it, but had to change the name for obvious reasons.

Posted by

mindwright.livejournal.com

You need to be careful about adding mechanics that turn healing surges into an easily accessible resource.

One of the occasional problems with 3rd/3.5 was the 5 minute workday. The tendency of adventurers to use their biggest and best powers in a tough encounter, then rest for a day so they hit the next encounter fresh. This can make encounters a lot easier, but doesn't really fit the heroic ideal.

The healing surge mechanic is designed to move most healing to a short rest period between encounters when you recover your encounter powers. If you introduce powers that use healing surges, especially if you make any of them usable at will rather than per encounter, you will quickly end up back in the original situation.

This came up during Mike Mearls' house rules seminar at Origins, in answer to the question. "What should I be careful about changing, and what changes will break the game?"

Posted by

alexandraerin.livejournal.com

Well, my original idea was to introduce a separately tracked set of "Ability Points", but I was leaning towards using healing surges because they're already there and it would cut down on bookkeeping.

I'm going to DM a few sessions "as is" before I introduce any homebrew rules that aren't in-the-moment fiats. I'm just gathering ideas at the moment.

Posted by (Anonymous)

I've read about the "5 minute day" in various articles by WOTC staffers, but I have yet to experience it in play, even in 2nd Ed when the Vancian system was far harsher on wizards.

As to the new system, our table is divided. Two of our DMs are major WOWers and dropped 3.5 as soon as they got a look at D4. They are enamored with how much it resembles an MMO. Two of our DMs (of which I am one) are switching to the Patfinder rule set. The fifth DM is undecided and will stay with 3.5, at least until we finish our current campaign. When playing, we'll generally play any of the three with little complaint, even if it's a system we would not care to DM. (gaming table runs from 5 - 10 players, DMs swap turns, each with their own campaign)

In D4, combat rounds ran quicker than 3.5 up to 3rd level. For 4th and 5th, the rounds seem to take just as much time as 3.5. However, the entire length of combat seems to take the same amount of time due to the rediculously high hit points monster have as they scale up.

While it doesn't feel like D&D to me, I only have 2 real gripes about it as a player. The first is that each class has a narrowly defined role in the party; a fighter is a wall, if you want to use 2 weapons, you must be a ranger, etc. The other is that if you want to multi-class, it takes 4 of your 6 heroic tier feats and have to multi-class as yor paragon path.

Posted by

alexandraerin.livejournal.com

Yeah, in all honesty, it seems to me like the risk of a "five minute work day" would be exacerbated by the new system, where every character has some of the weaknesses of a Vancian wizard. I could see an opposite problem coming about, too, where players inadvertently designate their favorite Daily Power "too good to use"... "I can't use it on this encounter, it's too early and I might need it later."... the same problem that a lot of limited use items get in console RPGs. This might ensure that they have it available for "boss fights", but on the other hand, the boss could be too resistant for it to be effective or it might be something that works better on a group of lesser foes.

Or they just might not realize that they're at the Absolute Last Battle of the day. Though I throw roleplaying and plenty of flavor and atmosphere into my battles when I DM, so there's not a lot of risk of that.

Anyways, I truly think that as long as a system isn't completely broken, the fun depends on the group and the DM and I had fun playing 4th edition and have already planned about 50% of the first adventure I'm going to run when the D&D Insider tools become available.

Posted by (Anonymous)

Kewl and good luck with the DDI tools. Our group gets together in person, but we are still looking forward to the mapping software to use during play. If it turns out ot be a good system, we will be very happy to have that projected on the wall or on the big TV. It'll save loads of setup time.

:-) If your games are as fun as your stories, I know at least 1 MUnkey that would like to play.

Posted by

alexandraerin.livejournal.com

I don't have a group here locally, as most of the people I'd care to play with live one state down, so online tools would just be easier. I know there are alternatives like RP Tools, but... I think a tile-by-tile map builder would be a better fit for my artistic (in)abilities.

Posted by

mindwright.livejournal.com

Actually, since you always have a couple of at-will options, and half or more of your attack powers are encounter powers, I've discovered that you can in fact get through fights without using your dailies. Unfortunately, saving your daily powers only helps if you eventually get to use them, so the best rule of thumb is to wait until you see a moment where your daily would be cool, and then go for it.

Definitely if you are about to spend an action point, consider using a daily ability that round. Especially if you have a tactical warlord around, or you are a human or half-elf with action surge.