pee pee doo doo 4E is a bad game

[clockworkjoe]

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.

Didn't understand it that well - only used stock adventures which sucked (keep on the shadowfell and kobold hall) and it took a while before I saw its advantages.

[malyss]

2nd post.
2 cents.

If you want to have fun playing a role-playing game, play with people you like. Systems are optional. I have enjoyed and hated every system I have played. It all came down to the people and the story. Broken mechanics and things you don't like can be side-stepped or outright ignored. One thing every rpg I have ever played has always stated in the game is "do whatever is fun, and if a rule isn't working, don't use it."

I'm currently running two systems - pathfinder (I'm a fan of what they have changed from 3.5) and 4e (I'm still learning, and I like a great many things, but if I hear "twin-strike" one more time I might vomit...).

I am enjoying Pathfinder as it is comforatble and I have essentially had 7 years of 3.x to get used to it.

I am enjoying 4e because man can I whip up encounters quickly, and everyone gets to do something, every round.

New systems are always tough. They are like new cars. You test drive them, and they smell nice, and look nice, but it isn't until you get them home that you realize they don't have as many cup holders as your old car, and the place where you keep your change on the dash isn't there anymore... but the new car is so fast! And smells nice... and there are no food stains from where the kids... never mind. You get my point.

One thing I can agree with whole-heartedly is that the stock adventures suck ballz. I tried running the forgotten realms something-of-war path and the first adventure was one of those completely disconnected dungeons where the family crypt has fungus and drakes and the gnomes live there too... it's like something reached into the monster manual and just ripped out pages at random and said, yeah, since we don't have favoured terrain any more, this will work and people can suspend enough disbelief to enjoy this... yeah, that's it. Garbage. Absolute garbage. Even dungeons should make some sense. Undead and orcs don't live happily only a room apart from each other without some sort of controlling shaman or magical trinkets or wards that keep them apart. It's like, "Morning Ralhp," and "Morning Sam..." and let's just clock in and out like we do this every day and nothing is unusual about the situation.

I do find for 4e it is a bit of a challenge to handle all of the old mundane stuff that 3.x could do, like profession checks and craft checks. I end up defaulting to whatever a character does best for the most part and hoping everyone buys into it "yes, acrobatics does help you steer a ship at sea, why wouldn't it?"

Anyway, enough blathering from me for one post. Just play whatever, as long as you play and have fun.

[Sentinel]

The adventures really do make the difference when comparing the systems. It's D&D, so naturally lots of DMs make up bad dungeon crawls, but a bad dungeon crawl in 4E can at least engage every member of the party because they all have useful combat abilities. Back in 3.5, bad dungeon crawls were unbearable. There was no variety to the action from round-to-round, room-to-room. Everyone sits around waiting for the thief to look for traps and the wizard to decide he can spare a fireball to deal with all the goblins and oozes. Yawn.

The difference was really highlighted for me when I moved away from my 4E group earlier this year and joined a group starting a 3.5 Dragonlance campaign. Warning bells were already going off in my head, so when creating my character I went through all the forums and books to create the most kick-ass cleric build imaginable. I synergized buff spells, metamagic feats, and gear. By level 7 I was the size of a giant, could uproot trees with my bare hands and wrestle trolls. But after hours of work, my cleric was still as boring to play as every other 3.5 cleric in a dungeon, and far less interesting than the 4E cleric I had chosen powers for at random in about 5 minutes.

Maybe 4E did lose some of the deeper roleplaying mechanics, but are those really important? Fourth Edition makes the dungeons and dragons of Dungeons & Dragons more fun. That's worth some praise.

[malyss]

That was a hell of a point - "It makes the dungeons and dragons of Dungeons & Dragons..."

I have had my group fight 2 dragons in 4e and they are only 7th level. Unheard of for 3.x in my opinion.

[clockworkjoe]

Maybe 4E did lose some of the deeper roleplaying mechanics

What mechanics are you referring to?

[Sentinel]

The commonly discussed ones are skills like craft and profession, cantrips, other non-combat spells, and even the simplification of alignment. Game mechanics which help players define who their characters are and what they can do when the fighting is over. For some people, those mechanics help to flesh out a character and develop its personality.

[malyss]

The commonly discussed ones are skills like craft and profession, cantrips, other non-combat spells, and even the simplification of alignment. Game mechanics which help players define who their characters are and what they can do when the fighting is over. For some people, those mechanics help to flesh out a character and develop its personality.

I would like to see a skill or feat or something that relates to the simpler aspects of life in the 4e world. I do agree that the PC's are heroes, and heroes don't often plant crops, but everyone has to start somewhere and the point or two I used to put into craft or profession did add something to the character. Maybe they could add a "trait" to the backgrounds? That seems like a reasonable method. Or create a second background that has the historical/flavour aspects.

I do like the way they handled wizards cantrips and the such - the little flavour of at-will prestidigitation and light are wonderful additions. When pathfinder made it so you could cast cantrips an unlimited amount, I was very pleased. I also like the way rituals are handled. I really like rituals. I find it is a better system than the vancian for a lot of stuff.

[mrlr]

That was a hell of a point - "It makes the dungeons and dragons of Dungeons & Dragons..."

I have had my group fight 2 dragons in 4e and they are only 7th level. Unheard of for 3.x in my opinion.

I had a group of 2 level 1 PCs fight a Grey Drakeling (level 3 elite).

(One player was obsessed with dragons.  He was convinced that the undead skeletons that were attacking the town were the work of dragons, so I had one show up.)

[Green artificial light]

You know though there is almost something to be said for the very rift 4E has created. that is to say; bad press , is better than no press. For me I had in my mind early on that they wern't going to do anything with Dragonlance so I figured why bother with 4e all together. But man after so much pissing and moaning I felt obligated to at least see what the problem was. After some examination I discovered it really wasnt ( to me) worth all the bitching I had heard, but also was a pretty far deviation from what I was used to. I tell you the truth I played World of Warcraft since its beta , only recently getting off that hamster wheel , and while I know this has been said many times before about 4e - it really , really , really reminds me of WoW. I'm sure as a buisness strategy that is probably a good thing. To me its going to be a lot easier to get my wow friends into gaming with 4E then it maybe would be with say- CoC ( this is more a statment of my friends childlike attention span than any statement of CoC) and hopefully that will parlay itself into a larger gaming group.
I'm looking into pathfinder currently , just sort of a glancing overview to see if it would be easier to change my DL stuff into the small conversion into pathfinder , or if the system sucks and I need to do it in 4E. I'm a guy who thinks 3/3.5 e's issues dealt with the plethora of books one had to own as a dm in order to run again. Some jackass always seemed to have some book you didnt have which always stated " yes , yes he can do that" , and that got a little old- so If pathfinder goes that route im not terribly interested either.

[malyss]

Pathfinder goes that route but to a lesser extent.

You can also restrict the players to just the core book or just the paizo stuff.

I am really enjoying the new pathfinder.

[Phelanar]

I bet that the Adventurer's Vault 2 reopens some of the complaints calling 4e a tabletop MMO clone. WotC practically begged for the comparison though. There are now item sets in AV2 that are quite similar to Tiered gear in WoW. Even not having played WoW in a couple of years and largely divested myself of anything relating to it, the first thing that popped into my head was the similarity. I don't think they're bad, and in fact most of the sets are pretty interesting, but it's going to fuel the flames on that particular argument to be sure.

[Tadanori Oyama]

I love the new items sets, especially the group items sets. I'm not a WoW player (I've played it but I didn't even use all the days in the free trial) but I'm surprised that I didn't make that connection when I read through the book. The first thing that I did was start talking with my players about how the different sets could be used in a campaign.

[Green artificial light]

Yeah my statements were made without knowledge of the item sets. Now I think its pretty obvious, if not riddiculous. Not to say Im unhappy with the idea - thats one of the things I did always like about WoW - the idea of personal achievement resulting in a very personal reward - the item sets.

[Kyyrn]

I haven't ever posted here before, but I feel compelled to offer my two cents.  No tabletop will ever be a "clone of an mmo".  It's just not possible.  A tabletop isn't a board game, it is a group of people sitting around building a story together, the system is just a method to prevent the "uh-uh that didn't happen" from becoming an issue.  The real reason, well, the reason I at least play RPG's, is for the fun of face to face interactions, the commentary around the game, and the story.  The rules, the roles, the dice used: All just a means to an end. 

That being said, a 4E game can be just as much fun as a 3.5 game. It's as good as the DM and the players make it.  It facillitates different styles of play, emphasizes the power of magic, and can be fun.  4E allows players to all be about the same in power, excelling at different aspects of the game, I've played both and had good and bad experiences with both systems. 

Unfortunately, a lot of people that I know refuse to play 4E, or refused to approach it with an open mind.  My reccomendation is this: If you have a good group, a good DM, and a good story, any system can be fun.  Just keep an open mind, and try to enjoy the game.

[clockworkjoe]

4E fixes a lot of problems that make 3E unplayable in certain ways, such as high level/epic 3E being fucking awful and I say this having run an epic campaign, monster stat blocks being unusable without cross-checking multiple books, spellcaster supremacy, combat being boring, and prestige class minmaxing insanity.

So, really, there is nothing that 3E offers over 4E. You can certainly have a great game with 3E but it has more flaws in its rules than 4E. You have to work harder to get a great game going I think.