Will you be moving to 4th Edition D&D?

[Gheal]

I've played 3 sessions with 4E, only, but this system doesn't strike me as very smooth. 4E is well-made, but bug-infested, so to say. This is pretty understandable, as it is entirely new system, without much use of previous D&D editions. But I was even more troubled with "estimated combat parameters" of new combat rules.
All combat rules are heavily oriented on battlegrid sheet - great accent on movement, no combat options for distances more than 45 squares, heavy use of difficult terrain. Field of battle for armies are mostly fields, not rough hills with thick forest.
Many combat opions were blindly acquired from WoW, even illogical ones, even invented for "aggro-building" mechanics. Marks/challenges/whatever, idea of aggroing tanks, as one of main combat roles, idea of "damage on miss".
Idea of at-will ranged attacks. I was against this even for warlocks in 3E. Imagine wizard and castle wall. Every round wizard casts magic missile. 10-hour workshift means 6000 magic missiles per day. Archers went blank and begins to retire - arrows must be crafted and carried, at least. Why build walls, when one mage in hiding can pierce hole in this wall given enough time? Such engines of destruction are incongruent with my feel of heroic fantasy.
I may be wrong, but my group have no intentions to use 4E in ongoing campaigns. I like chess, but RPG is differnt sort of game.

[kgauck]

Idea of at-will ranged attacks. I was against this even for warlocks in 3E. Imagine wizard and castle wall. Every round wizard casts magic missile. 10-hour workshift means 6000 magic missiles per day. Archers went blank and begins to retire - arrows must be crafted and carried, at least. Why build walls, when one mage in hiding can pierce hole in this wall given enough time? Such engines of destruction are incongruent with my feel of heroic fantasy.

Magic missile has a range of 20, like a sling, and is about as effective. If one can imagine someone defeating a castle with a sling, then I suppose the same is possible with a magic missile. We don't have rules for castles, and they've tried to do away with the added complexity of attacking objects. The section on damage to objects is very vague (which is fine if you just want a DM to make a call and move on) but its clear in the final paragraph (on pg 66 of the DMG) that its up to the DM to decide when an object is resistant or immune to certain kinds of damage.

In 3e this was worked out in great detail, using hardness, and assigning a hardness to every object. Regular masonry had a hardness of 8, and magic missile did 1d4+1 damage and so could never damage masonry. Since magic missile is an immaterial force weapon, and a sling is basically a material force weapon, as far as the damage they do to stone, I'd say they are pretty much the same. Neither one, even with unlimited combat applications is going to damage a castle wall (or a stone house for that matter). Given unlimited, undisturbed applications, maybe you could eventually make a hole, but its like cutting a tree down with a hammer.

4e's approach is not to attempt to anticipate everything a players might have his character do and make a rule for it. If that means somewhere a DM allows a wizard with a magic missile (or a guy with a sling) to breach a castle wall, then so be it. 4e doesn't mandate that kind of silly outcome and gives plenty of latitude to DM's to achieve more sensible outcomes.

[Gheal]

Magic missile has a range of 20, like a sling, and is about as effective. /.../ The section on damage to objects is very vague (which is fine if you just want a DM to make a call and move on) but its clear in the final paragraph (on pg 66 of the DMG) that its up to the DM to decide when an object is resistant or immune to certain kinds of damage.

In 3e this was worked out in great detail, using hardness, and assigning a hardness to every object. Regular masonry had a hardness of 8, and magic missile did 1d4+1 damage and so could never damage masonry. Since magic missile is an immaterial force weapon, and a sling is basically a material force weapon, as far as the damage they do to stone, I'd say they are pretty much the same. Neither one, even with unlimited combat applications is going to damage a castle wall (or a stone house for that matter). Given unlimited, undisturbed applications, maybe you could eventually make a hole, but its like cutting a tree down with a hammer.

4e's approach is not to attempt to anticipate everything a players might have his character do and make a rule for it. If that means somewhere a DM allows a wizard with a magic missile (or a guy with a sling) to breach a castle wall, then so be it. 4e doesn't mandate that kind of silly outcome and gives plenty of latitude to DM's to achieve more sensible outcomes.

4E: Eldritch blast (Warlock1, Cha 16, implement +1) 1d10+4 arcane damage. Magic missile (Wiz1, Int16, implement+1) 2d4+4 force damage. Fighter with Str16 and Battleaxe+1 - 1d10+4 slashing damage. All people must be equal
Wooden bridges, drawbridges on chains, weak points in stone structures all are susceptible to weird kinds of damage. Giving someone unlimited resources to affect something from range and without cost (battleaxe can wear or break, eldritch blast can not) is great source for game world unbalancing, IMO. 3E was much more "real" in these aspects.

[bbeau22]

4E: Eldritch blast (Warlock1, Cha 16, implement +1) 1d10+4 arcane damage. Magic missile (Wiz1, Int16, implement+1) 2d4+4 force damage. Fighter with Str16 and Battleaxe+1 - 1d10+4 slashing damage. All people must be equal
Wooden bridges, drawbridges on chains, weak points in stone structures all are susceptible to weird kinds of damage. Giving someone unlimited resources to affect something from range and without cost (battleaxe can wear or break, eldritch blast can not) is great source for game world unbalancing, IMO. 3E was much more "real" in these aspects.

Isn't Eldritch blast in third edition? Better yet Locks in third edition could change eldrich blast into a fireball like blast .... and do it at will.

Also didn't they start implementing feats that let you give up a high level spell slot to cast a low level spell for free at will?

Hmmm now that you mention it, a magical battleaxe would never wear down correct? Make it out of adamantite and it would bypass most hardness.

My point is that 3rd edition was already going in this direction.

-BB

[kgauck]

IMO. 3E was much more "real" in these aspects.

No doubt! You'll get no argument that in terms of realism, 3.5 is a simulationist game, and 4e is a caricature. But, I would add, are their rules in 4e for an axe wearing out? I don't think so, so in the same cartoon world that gives you unlimited magic missiles, you also get the untarnished mundane axe.

But as far as spellcasting goes, I really prefer 4e to 3.x. Then again I prefer almost anything to the standard vancian system.

What I definitely don't like is making characters interchangeable in terms of damage or combat effectiveness. From a Birthright perspective, where combat can be but merely one tool in your bag of tricks, balancing the classes on combat seems particularly off kilter.

[Mojczak]

Never, on my soul, will I change for 4th edition. I begun with 1st at 6 with my father's group, was glad to discover 2nd at 9, was horrified with 3rd edition and both angered and relived with 3.5. I hate wizards for buying of tsr and making this profit-oriented by mass-producing instead of mass-quality work and just repeatedly producing the same material with different rules. I want Ideas and aventures, not die roles and sheet filling all the time, differently. D&D is loosing its edge, as producer for the line are sitting on the trademark's laurels instead of producing new interesting stuff. They are afraid to loose money... poor thing.

[kgauck]

Loosing money is death to a business. Never wish it on any gaming enterprise.

I played boxed D&D (where elf and dwarf were a class) and the experience tables went up to 5th level; and everything in between. I think all editions prior to 3rd are sad. I had fun with them in the same way I had fun with computer games with geometric lines for objects (like asteroids) largely because what I was used to was worse than what I had. Now that I've gotten used to 3rd edition, I wouldn't go back to 2nd unless the group were optimal because the limitation of 2e, its weird mechanics, and its lack of depth would be a constant frustration.

4e would be a good edition for a game that's mostly about fighting. I wouldn't run it, but I would play it.

Wizard's problem isn't that they have no new ideas. Its almost that they have too many ideas. The most successful business has one really good idea and sticks to it. That's a fox vs the hedgehog question. Wizards is probabaly a little too much fox and might be in need of a little more hedgehog. They probabaly see 4e as their one big idea. We'll see how things work for them.

Popularity is generally a good indication of a good product. People know best what product that want. I'm not going to second guess their buying decisions.

[mujeresliebres]

I've read some reviews of 4e, and honestly I'm just not enthused enough to switch.

Here's my logic. I've only been tabletop gaming for 2 years. But I'd played the Baldurs Gate series, Planescape torment etc. on my computer. So I feel that I have a general understanding how 2e worked, and I have to say it was confusing and weird. Everyone I know who has played both at a table says that 2e was just getting bogged down by too many conflicting rules across too many settings. So they release 3e which is buggy of course, and people are bitter about 3.5 and having to buy new books. But everyone I know thinks that in general they were both really good functioning systems. With 3.5 being the preferred system to play in.

That said 4e is in essence trying to replace a system that is not broken. If they're so worried about making money, why aren't they updating an old or coming out with a couple of new campaign settings? The gamers I know would be more than willing to try a new campaign setting, but no one I know wants to buy 4e.

I'm fine if something is simplified to make it better, but it does seem to me like the game is being dumbed down to match how computer games work. The once per encounter magic strikes me as very WoW oriented. And to me, some of the best evidence that the game is being distanced from traditional fantasy is that bards have been removed as a core class. Now maybe I'm just a dork who likes playing social characters and singing when I feel like it, but bards to me are classic roleplaying (not rollplaying). It seems that with the emphasis placed on miniatures, equalizing classes by combat, and numerous encounter based abilities, the aspects of storytelling, acting out a character, etc. are diminished.

I was discussing this earlier with a friend who flat out said one of his biggest problems was the fact that the feel had changed from generic fantasy into something much more oriented around a particular setting. To quote him, "well sure, tieflings existed already and are fine, but they're something the D&D people made up; might as well make aboleths a core PC race, or mongrelmen... I want it to be more adapatable to any fantasy setting and not just the D&D setting." Considering the number of homebrew settings I play in 3.5 is definitely a better fit than 4e for us.

Ack all stop rambling now. But yeah no 4e for me.

[Odinsman01]

My group and i are never moving to 4th ed. Doesn't feel like d&d to us and to be honest 2 of them wanted to return to 2nd ed. 3.0/3.5 had lots of kinks but it all worked out in the end. 4th ed. just felt alot like warhammer quest or another one of those combat oriented games. It really stresses the combat instead of t he role-playing aspect of d&d. Maybe we'll try the new 5th or 6th ed. when they come out

[fbaker4]

http://www.myth-weavers.com/games.php?gameid=2493

I'm looking for players for a Birthright game using 4e mechanics. It's going to be better than you think...