pee pee doo doo 4E is a bad game

[clockworkjoe]

Just the fact that monsters now have all their relevant abilities listed in their entry is amazing.

[Murph]

I'm sorry you feel that way. Some of us lime cross referencing three books to see how well our Pc can disarm the Orc swinging an improvesed shovel while etherial!

Good day!


I said good day!

[Tadanori Oyama]

Just the fact that monsters now have all their relevant abilities listed in their entry is amazing.

I can run whole encounters using three or four different monster templates out of the book without having to turn the page. I love it.

[dragonshaos]

4E is the whole reason I started D&D.  I tried some years ago but the rules were too complex for my wee mind.

Plus I got a good deal on Amazon for the 3 core books.  =P

[Phineas_Rage]

I played 3rd edition when it came out, stopped caring about it, and when 4th edition came out, I jumped on the bandwagon and loved it. Last weekend I recently played a 3rd edition game (much to my chagrin as it was a last minute bait and switch).

3rd edition has its merits. As someone who likes social situations, I ended up playing a bard and it was fun being able to use my spells to affect roleplaying outcomes more easily than 4th edition. However, in combat, boy, did I feel useless (as opposed to when I was playing a bard in 4th edition, where I felt like I was at least helping out a bit). The party needed a fighter, but I refused to play it 'cause, Lord, are they boring in 3rd edition. Playing a fighter in fourth edition is a lot more fun.

Anyway, I came away thinking "both editions have their merits and are fun." I still walked away from the table thinking, "Yeep. I played Dungeons & Dragons."

[Boyos]

honestly i liked the fighter in 3e also enjoued the samuri. from the oriantal adventures book wich was the same thing as a fighter basicly just started with a good sword. anyways they get a feat every other level or so, so you'll have cleave and ww in no time as a warrior or what ever you plan on going. i had a person play bow fighter so he picked up some nasty bow feats and was pretty sick with it.

[Phelanar]

Whether you prefer 3.X or 4e kind of depends on what you want out of your gaming. If you want to roleplay and have the mechanics to back it up, well 3.X facilitates that a little better as there are more social oriented skills right up front. I think that 4e using skill challenges for important social situations evens things up a fair bit as it allows for more people than just the Face to better contribute mechanically to a roleplay situation, but YMMV.

If you want to have a lot of flexibility (for a class/level based system) for building your character to the point where you can easily break the game (or at least slow it to a crawl as you dig through 20 books for all your stuff), then 3.X is for you. Personally, I think that 4e plays to the advantages of a class/level system better and that if you want real flexibility you'd probably be better off looking at a different game system entirely.

If you want a good ~game~, then I seriously feel that 4e is better. I see people all the time saying that 3.X is better from a mechanics standpoint and that's the point where I just can't listen anymore. d20 prior to D&D4e and Star Wars Saga Edition was pretty damned clunky. I still played it and liked it, but an example of awesome game design it was not.

I'm not a blind fan of 4e. I have my own issues with it. I don't like what they've done with the alignment system (and it says a lot that even most 4e fans ignore it and use the traditional one), I don't like the changes to the planes, and I think that they screwed up by not introducing a real default game world. But beyond those things, I think that 4e is far and above the best D&D edition I've played.

[dragonshaos]

I think on the D&D podcast they made an offhand comment that 4E is in fact played in Greyhawk, if I heard them right and they were not talking about 3.x edition.

[Tadanori Oyama]

I think on the D&D podcast they made an offhand comment that 4E is in fact played in Greyhawk, if I heard them right and they were not talking about 3.x edition.

It's similar. 4E actually has a unique defaulted setting with established cities, as detailed in various books. River Crest, Fall Crest, and anything else that appears in the pregen adventures is assumed to be part of the this defaulted world.

[Boyos]

Whether you prefer 3.X or 4e kind of depends on what you want out of your gaming. If you want to roleplay and have the mechanics to back it up, well 3.X facilitates that a little better as there are more social oriented skills right up front. I think that 4e using skill challenges for important social situations evens things up a fair bit as it allows for more people than just the Face to better contribute mechanically to a roleplay situation, but YMMV.

If you want to have a lot of flexibility (for a class/level based system) for building your character to the point where you can easily break the game (or at least slow it to a crawl as you dig through 20 books for all your stuff), then 3.X is for you. Personally, I think that 4e plays to the advantages of a class/level system better and that if you want real flexibility you'd probably be better off looking at a different game system entirely.

If you want a good ~game~, then I seriously feel that 4e is better. I see people all the time saying that 3.X is better from a mechanics standpoint and that's the point where I just can't listen anymore. d20 prior to D&D4e and Star Wars Saga Edition was pretty damned clunky. I still played it and liked it, but an example of awesome game design it was not.

I'm not a blind fan of 4e. I have my own issues with it. I don't like what they've done with the alignment system (and it says a lot that even most 4e fans ignore it and use the traditional one), I don't like the changes to the planes, and I think that they screwed up by not introducing a real default game world. But beyond those things, I think that 4e is far and above the best D&D edition I've played.

I personaly like the 4E better then 3rd. But 3rd ed fighters were fun! haha!

[clockworkjoe]

I saw this on a thread in the SA forums - basically going over anti 4E grognards who hate that fighters get powers now and bitch about it is 'unrealistic'

Whats the fucking obsession with realism anyway? It's literally a fantasy game about heroes doing fantastic shit in a world with magic and dragons and all that shit. That's what they signed on for! None of the books ever once imply that what they're aiming for is realism, the word fantasy is used more often in RPG books than anywhere else in print other than maybe cheesy erotica or something. That's like... the whole point?

It's such a random demand too. Dragons are apparently realistic, that's cool no complaint there, dudes with beards throwing fire from their hands is realistic. But second winds? Encounter powers? A dude with a sword actually doing cool shit? That just fucking blows their minds, breaks their immersion, and is just totally beyond the scope of their imagination.

I bet they flip past a beholder like it aint no thing. A creature that literally defies gravity, constantly, doesn't set off their unrealism alarm, but that fighter better not do shit with his sword other than attack or it's all over.

By that logic, a martial artist is a "magic user".


which leads to the superslam:

are you surprised that these people think exercise requires supernatural aid

[Tadanori Oyama]

I like the "random demand" section best. And that is an awesome burn.

[Wooberman]

Damn that's such a great burn I can feel the heat from here!

[jak7890]

I like that the author's argument is that players want to be gratified instantly in the games that they play, and the game makers' acquiescence to that desire in game design is going to doom the game industry.

To paraphrase: giving the paying customers what they want is going to kill the business...?

I find it kind of silly that the author assumes that delayed gratification is inherently better than instant gratification, even if the end result is the same.

To paraphrase: It's better to get $1 tomorrow instead of getting that same $1 today.

I can just hear the guy now: "Damn those players for always wanting to do cool things all the time... Why can't they just stay off my lawn..."

[mrlr]

I was listening to RPPR Episode 18 where Ross and Tom reviewed 4e for the first time.

They basically said that while they liked some things, they didn't like it overall.

I guess that has changed.