4th Ed D&D

[Hotfoot]

Bottom line, you can have a good time with ANY RPG ruleset, with some limitations. The enjoyment of a game comes largely from having fun with friends by telling stories. The better a system is at telling the story you want told out of the box, the better a system it is.

Meanwhile, at the end of the day, the GM is the arbitrator of all disputes, and should judge them fairly. "The GM is always right" does not mean that the GM can be a d-bag, because at the end of the day, while the players need the GM, the GM needs the players as well, and players unhappy with a GM will leave the game.

When I run games, and there's a question on rules, I'll open up a short discussion, make a ruling, and move on. If that ruling turns out to not be the best decision later on, I'll revise it as it is appropriate.

Now, when it comes to D&D 4th ed, it's hard to say much of real value until we get to see the system in action in an extended game, and when we get to see some of the new content that will be coming out. However, so far, it appears to be a top tier system in my book. It hasn't unseated my favorite systems, but it has made headway and blown past 3.x in my estimation.

[Civil War Man]

He had a lot of trouble understanding that other players had the right to have fun too, or that the GM wasn't an opponent he had to defeat

That first part makes him a jackass. Though just for random nerd history, the DM was effectively an opponent to the players in the first edition of D&D. It's why a lot of those modules are specifically built to cause party wipes. Nice that for the most part that is no longer the case.

[Mr Bean]

I don't like 4e, it's not the mechanics, but the fluff, specifically the fact that they took what was in essence D&D Serbia and made it D&D Carebear-land.

Specifically, all the racial hatreds which made sense have been removed. For example Dwarves live underground, normally in mountains, they compete against goblins, kobolds for the same caves, they also compete against Giant for the natural caves. They don't like each other because they are all trying to live in the same space. Thus in time, a long genetic hatred of each other.
This has been toned down in 4e. And what about Tieflings? Since becoming a "race" rather than the gitt of a demon two generations removed they also apparently are ok to walk around in the open daylight despite the very real issue that their grand-parents made deals with devils for "power" and of course the demons turned on them and now they are tainted for the next 50k generations. This is the D&D Equivalent of Goose-stepping around Israel in SS uniform.

Yet in 4E D&D world no one cares.

But I can overlook that, fine whatever, were all ok now, the racisim between all the various races is tonned down or removed fine.

That leaves the even greater problem of what they did to the planes... Yeah... whoever was in charge of murdering the good works of Planescape in TSR, fuck you, fuck you with an ironwood +2 club. (Geek shout-out)

They removed the Blood-War, let me just repost what I wrote way back when I found out about this.

As I've said time and time again I love worlds which make sense. They are believable in their own worlds. The rules can be nonsensical, they can be crazy, but as long as the world follows those rules, everything can work itself out in the end.

A good example, the everlasting Blood War. The War between the Devil's of the Nine Hell's and the Demon's of the Infinite Abyss.

Let me repeat that INFINITE Abyss. The reason why the INFINITE Demons of the Infinite Abyss have not long since curb stomped good in all of it's finite forms is because the Demons of the Abyss war between themselves, then they war between the Devils of the Nine Hell's and they fight good, they fight neutral, they fight everyone. And because of that the fact, it makes sense that the Infinite Abyss is to busy fighting everyone along with their very nature to go curb-stomping the Outlands in mass or any one of a dozen other places that two billion demon's could quickly conquer.

Without a Blood War to distract the Demons, why are the planes not cover in darkness and destruction? Lazy Demon's?

Which makes more sense and feels better from a storytelling point? The infinte demon's can be bothered to invade(Until the PC's get there of course) or the infinte demons are fighting everything and everybody and are to Chaotic to get a serious army going before the Devil's smash it.

Since then I've learned the infinte Abyss lost some layers(Specifically the last six trillion of them) but each layer houses billions of demons still, so why are the Demons not invading and destroying the world?

Even worse because large scale civilizations in D&D are gone all it takes is one demon to get into a Prime Material world and that world is gone, period, deaaad since there are no uber level "chosen of Mystral" running around to stop a serious demon invasion.
----------------
So I hold an open mind, perhaps the Mechanics really will be better, but I'm going to have to take the fluff and toss it out on it's head since a PC friendly crowd has gotten ahold of the D&D material and dumb-down and friended up so many different long-standing D&D standards which in fact needed no such changes.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Did they get rid of the sorcerer or did they fix it so that it now does something better than a wizard to make it an actual decision of which to play?

As for the Blood War and the acceptance of demon-spawn and mortal enemy races, that has to be the dumbest thing I've ever seen happen to D&D, worse than some of the shit in BoVD. I can see a majority of DM's throwing it out and replacing it with older fluff, be it AD&D or 3.X.

[Imperial Overlord]

Did they get rid of the sorcerer or did they fix it so that it now does something better than a wizard to make it an actual decision of which to play?

They're busy redesigning the class for later release. It will, apparently, have more emphasis on wild, raw magic.

As for the Blood War and the acceptance of demon-spawn and mortal enemy races, that has to be the dumbest thing I've ever seen happen to D&D, worse than some of the shit in BoVD. I can see a majority of DM's throwing it out and replacing it with older fluff, be it AD&D or 3.X.

I really dislike the axing of the Blood War, especially after the Codex of Fiends made both demons and devils far more interesting. It's like they went "Good work boys. Oh, by the way, we'll be doing 4th edition and pissing all over everything. Your work will be totally obsolete and irrelevant."

Making the fey more than a throwaway reference was nice though.

[White Haven]

3e fluff, 4e ruleset, nuff said. You don't fuck with my Planes.

[Rogue 9]

I really dislike the axing of the Blood War, especially after the Codex of Fiends made both demons and devils far more interesting. It's like they went "Good work boys. Oh, by the way, we'll be doing 4th edition and pissing all over everything. Your work will be totally obsolete and irrelevant."

That's what really got me the most. After the Draconomicon, the Fiendish Codices were the books that were just the most fun to read, and less than a year after releasing them, they invalidated everything between their covers.

[Anguirus]

It's probably why one of the most popular house rules is "The DM is fucking right all the fucking time, sit the fuck down."

That's not even a house rule, it's always been D&D's official policy. Hell, the 4E DMG has advice on when you should fudge rolls.

There's a pretty good chance that a 4E version of Planescape will be released, it's just not an extension of the "official" world anymore. Since they are only planning to release three books per campaign setting now, they are planning to revisit everything they're sitting on. May not be for awhile though, since we're not even getting Eberron till '09.

[Imperial Overlord]

Since they are only planning to release three books per campaign setting now, they are planning to revisit everything they're sitting on. May not be for awhile though, since we're not even getting Eberron till '09.

While I'm glad they are revisiting Planescape and Darksun, there's no way they are going to hold Faerun to three books. The FR crowd is far too big and undiscriminating not to milk it one way or the other.

[Imperial Overlord]

I can buy Tiefling tolerance if the old empire is viewed as something glorious and human, as well as something dark and corrupt. Something like the way we view Rome as being great despite the slavery, crucifixion, gladiatorial games and all the rest of it.

[Solauren]

I haven't had a chance to sit down with my 4E books yet. Even if I did, we are only a few 'chapters' into the Savage Tide, so wouldn't be converting / upgrading until at least next year.

Given my financial output, I probably won't be switching to 4E (DDM 2.0 is another matter, as that's all being converted) unless conversion is fairly simple and straight forward, and I AND/OR my wife likes the mechanics better.

I like my Gelsalt
Male Celedrian 1/Psion 11/Slayer 6 - Swordsage 11/Eternal Soul 2/ Master of the Nine 5
and other characters (my Copper Elf Werewolf Lord 7/Fighter 18 - Barbarian 13/Frenzied Berserker 10/Wrecker 5 with two Great Axes comes to mind)
too much.

[SirNitram]

The 'Points Of Light' world does leave a shitload to be desired. I'm not going to go nuclear on the fluff until I see Forgotten Realm's though; if that's completely flipped on it's stuff, that's a major thing.

And I can't imagine they'd be working on Planescape -without- the Blood War. It's too much of a serious issue to ignore.

[Solauren]

If they ignore the Blood War in a 4E Planescape, they basically made a new setting and called it that...

[SirNitram]

The bigger Planescape question is whether they preserve Faction War as canon or not.

[Joviwan]

..Wait, people already have their book? I thought they weren't going to be released until the 6th?

[lPeregrine]

Now, on the subject of multiclassing: It doesn't suck as hard as it may seem. In fact, it's actually far more generous than most previous forms of multiclassing from what I saw, but what you have to remember is that multiclassing in 3.x without ridiculously powerful and broken prestige classes SUCKED. There was no way to get the higher level abilities if you had ten levels in fighter and ten levels in wizard, you were doomed to a Rogue's BAB, nowhere near the number of feats, and only 5th level magic. Not so here, where a fighter who multiclasses can pick up a wizard's paragon path, higher level abilities, and so on. Yes, you have to give up some of your fighter power abilities, but that is the price you pay for having a wider selection of abilities to choose from in the first place.

The problem is how much you have to pay. Compare:

3E: Switch classes at any time, the only price is that you don't advance in your first class.

Now, let's look at what you have to pay in 4th Edition to get the same benefit:

1) At least two of your existing class features, which are traded for new class features.

2) Three feat slots. It would be bad enough just having to give up existing abilities, but now you also have to waste 3 feats to do it, costing you even more of your primary class's ability.

3) Your paragon/epic path. After all that, now you're finally allowed to have a second class. Too bad you permanently give up advancing in your first class to get it, even if you decide you're finished with the second class and want to work on the primary again.

So in short: what you could do for free in 3E, now you have to pay a huge price to do in 4E.


And the lack of higher-level abilities wasn't so bad in 3E, since you had a nice selection of prestige classes. Sure, Wizard 10/Rogue 10 would be pretty weak, but Wizard 5/Rogue 3/Arcane Trickster 12 works just fine.

And come on, three-plus class characters were almost entirely uber-cheese crap that was done specifically for retarded first and second level bonuses, like a Paladin Barbarian Fighter Rogue who dabbled in Wizard for some random PRC that gave stupid retarded bonuses.

Well, three base-class characters, maybe. But when you consider prestige classes, it's often mandatory to have two base classes, then the prestige class is a third. In 4E, I guess it's less of a problem, since there are no prestige classes, but it does remove your paragon path and epic destiny options. Why? There's no good reason, it's just an arbitrary limit.

Look, bottom line, when someone says to me that multiclassing allows for "Non-traditional" characters, I have a healthy dose of skepticism, because it seems like code for "retardedly powerful bullshit". Non-traditional characters, in my mind, are defined by the characters themselves, like the Rogue who is lawful good, or the Paladin who beats confessions out of his enemies, or the Fighter who hates killing people, not by "The Fighter who can throw a fireball" or "The Rogue who can use Cleric powers", or "The Paladin with Barbarian Abilities".

Why the false dillema here? Who said a character can't have both? Like it or not, some character concepts require abilities from multiple classes to make them work. Obviously you can also do stupidly powerful stuff with rules exploits, but that's where a little thing called DM judgement comes in. Who cares if something like Pun-Pun is technically allowed by the rules, any sane DM is just going to say "that's nice, come back with a real character".

As for sneak attacks, it makes sense to limit the initial damage allowed because frankly it's a little ridiculous to cause that much damage on something that's supposed to be representative of a rogue slipping a blade through a target's defenses to hit a weak spot. It's simply not that easy to do that sort of thing with a big two-handed hammer.

And you don't think catching someone from behind with a giant axe is going to leave them open to a nastier than normal hit?

Or for an even more pointless limit, why are crossbows allowed, but bows not? There's absolutely no reason, besides the fact that crossbows are a "traditional rogue weapon", and bows aren't.

Besides which, there's a feat that increases sneak attack damage to d8's, and sneak attack now works on just about everything, instead of maybe only half the monsters you might usually face.

And your point is? Increasing base weapon damage slightly is not a game-breaking effect, especially when a rogue probably has to spend a feat for proficiency with that weapon.

As for the changes to teleport, well, let's face it, Teleport was one of those broken spells that needed a desperate change.

A better change would be just increasing the price, so it's not practical to use it every time there's a trap in your path. Limiting it to destinations with pre-set teleport markers makes it an almost completely useless spell. Now teleport has gone from "interesting strategic option that needs to be less-frequently used" to "how to carry all of your loot back to town to sell".

[lPeregrine]

Alter the system for your games then. That's what we'll probably do. The game isn't set in stone.

Like Arthur_Tuxedo said, yes, I can always house-rule it away, but the question is why? Why is it my job to re-write major parts of the game rules after I've paid a lot of money for books?

And the bigger problem is how to house-rule it away. Given the way the class system works, it looks like I'd have to scrap so much of it and start over that I'd be better of just using a different system.

[Oskuro]

Though just for random nerd history, the DM was effectively an opponent to the players in the first edition of D&D. It's why a lot of those modules are specifically built to cause party wipes. Nice that for the most part that is no longer the case.

Hehehe, reminded me of the following dialogue from the Gary Gygax Tribute OOTS:

Roy's Archon: Just a word of warning while you're here: Be careful around the Hall of Characters That Died Without a Saving Throw. A lot of the guys there are still testy about "Tomb of Horrors".

G.Gygax: Heh, heh, oh, man. Sphere of Annihilation in the statue's mouth. That never got old.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Or for an even more pointless limit, why are crossbows allowed, but bows not? There's absolutely no reason, besides the fact that crossbows are a "traditional rogue weapon", and bows aren't.

Crossbows are more accurate weapons, and they penetrate better. That is why. Even at close range, getting a hit with a bow accurate enough to get through a chink in someone's armor is very very hard. It is easier with a crossbow, which can be fired like a fucking rifle.

Now, I dont give three shits about multiclassing. I usually play single class characters or I take a prestige class that requires minimal multiclassing to pull off.

That being said, I will echo the statements here. I love 4th edition mechanics. I fucking hate the fluff. But that can be fixed. It can be fixed by making my own campaign world, it can be fixed by retro-editing existing campaign worlds. The fluff is optional. In fact, I have been working on a setting for years (on and off) that is basically medieval europe if magic were inserted... 4th edition mechanics actually work better for this

[Imperial Overlord]

Peregrine, you're flat out wrong about how multiclassing works in 4th.

First of all, the initiate feats (the ones you have to take at the start) give you class skills and a power right off the bat. You get something immediately.

The Novice, Acolyte, and Adept feats are the straight power swaps. To be honest I'm not thrilled with these but the possibility of having fighter AC and hitpoints but being able to throw around some wizard encounter and daily powers makes me think twice about that.

Epic destiny is unaffected. Swapping a paragon path for a multiclass path is optional, not mandatory.

Arcane Trickster is a horrible comparison. Sure it works well . . . . . at 19th level. Until 9th you get to play as an underpowered wizard/rogue combo. That's 9 levels of suck and only then do you start to dig your way out. Prestige classes tend to be horribly designed, either cheap to enter and broken, or moderately powerful and requiring you to take a bunch of near useless feats.

[Civil War Man]

Yeah, not liking the fluff is never really a problem in my experience. I was in a Dark Sun campaign run with 3.5 and all that really needed to be added was weapon breakage (though I pretty much got around this by being an agent of one of the largest Merchant Houses, and thus could afford metal weapons).

And for not D&D, I'm currently in a WoD campaign using the new base mechanics along with the old fluff (and since the party will eventually awaken, the old Spheres since the GM thinks the Death sphere in nWoD is stupid).

[Oskuro]

Crossbows are more accurate weapons, and they penetrate better. That is why. Even at close range, getting a hit with a bow accurate enough to get through a chink in someone's armor is very very hard. It is easier with a crossbow, which can be fired like a fucking rifle.

It's easier mainly due to penetration. Crossbows meant the demise of heavy amor (historically) because a poorly trained peasant could defeat a heavily armored knight (As happened to Richard "Lionheart"). This also meant that the nobles despised crossbows and painted them as cowardly weapons (thus, bonus points for a rogue, right?).

[lPeregrine]

First of all, the initiate feats (the ones you have to take at the start) give you class skills and a power right off the bat. You get something immediately.

Well, those are the least-bad of the feats. I'm not too happy with the new powers being encounter-only, but it's better than nothing.

The Novice, Acolyte, and Adept feats are the straight power swaps. To be honest I'm not thrilled with these but the possibility of having fighter AC and hitpoints but being able to throw around some wizard encounter and daily powers makes me think twice about that.

Those are the three "wasted" feats I was talking about. A straight swap would be fine, in my opinion, OR a feat that gives you a class feature (like the initiate feats). It's just overkill to have to take a "feat" that does absolutely nothing.

Epic destiny is unaffected. Swapping a paragon path for a multiclass path is optional, not mandatory.

My mistake about the epic destiny part.

But losing the paragon path is mandatory, if you want to continue to gain any higher-level class features. It's an either-or choice, unlike 3E where you could stop/start at any time. See p.208

"If you have the Novice Power, Acolyte Power, and Adept Power feats for a class, you can choose to continue to gain powers from that class rather than take a paragon path. If you choose this option, you gain several benefits."

And even after giving up your paragon path, you don't even get second-class features at your actual character level, you're only allowed to take features a couple levels lower.

Arcane Trickster is a horrible comparison. Sure it works well . . . . . at 19th level. Until 9th you get to play as an underpowered wizard/rogue combo. That's 9 levels of suck and only then do you start to dig your way out. Prestige classes tend to be horribly designed, either cheap to enter and broken, or moderately powerful and requiring you to take a bunch of near useless feats.

I'd hardly call it "9 levels of suck" to have to give up 3 wizard levels. Maybe if you only care about making the most powerful character ever, but it's entirely possible to make a playable character with that class. Here's a hint: find a DM that actually knows how to adjust the encounter difficulty to reflect the party's power levels, instead of just mindlessly following the official charts.

[lPeregrine]

Or for an even more pointless limit, why are crossbows allowed, but bows not? There's absolutely no reason, besides the fact that crossbows are a "traditional rogue weapon", and bows aren't.

Crossbows are more accurate weapons, and they penetrate better. That is why. Even at close range, getting a hit with a bow accurate enough to get through a chink in someone's armor is very very hard. It is easier with a crossbow, which can be fired like a fucking rifle.

Well, I'll concede the real world comparison, since I will admit I haven't used the real weapons to know for sure. I find it hard to believe that a historically accurate crossbow would have such amazing accuracy, but it's not entirely relevant.

What IS relevant are the following ranger class features (there are more, of course):

Careful Attack Ranger Attack 1
You study the enemy, looking for a gap in his defenses. Only
when you find it do you strike.
At-Will ✦ Martial,Weapon
Standard Action Melee or Ranged weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding two melee weapons or a
ranged weapon.
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength + 2 vs. AC (melee) or Dexterity + 2 vs. AC
(ranged).
Hit: 1[W] damage (melee) or 1[W] damage (ranged).
Increase damage to 2[W] (melee)

Shadow Wasp Strike Ranger Attack 3
You strike quickly, like a shadow wasp flying out of the darkness,
hitting where your foe is most vulnerable.
Encounter ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee or Ranged weapon
Target: One creature that is your quarry
Attack: Strength vs. AC (melee) or Dexterity vs. AC (ranged)
Hit: 2[W] + Strength modifier damage (melee) or 2[W] +
Dexterity modifier damage (ranged).


Or how about these two, for melee weapons (whatever melee weapon you like):

Armor Splinter Ranger Attack 13
You attack the weak spots in your opponent’s armor, not only
dealing damage but also leaving your prey vulnerable to later
attacks.
Encounter ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding two melee weapons.
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC (main weapon and off-hand weapon),
two attacks
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage per attack. If one
attack hits, the target takes a penalty to AC equal to your
Wisdom modifier until the end of your next turn. If both
attacks hit, the target takes a penalty to AC equal to 2 +
your Wisdom modifier until the end of your next turn.

Armor-Piercing Thrust Fighter Attack 3
You drive your weapon through a weak point in your foe’s
defenses.
Encounter ✦ Martial,Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. Reflex
Weapon: If you’re wielding a light blade or a spear, you gain
a bonus to the attack roll equal to your Dexterity modifier.
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage.
Weapon: If you’re wielding a light blade or a spear, you gain
a bonus to the damage roll equal to your Dexterity modifier.





So regardless of the real-world accuracy involved, there are plenty of abilities that involve accurately hitting a weak point in the enemy's armor/defenses, just like a rogue's sneak attack. Limiting the rogue's weapons makes no sense... why does a ranger have the ability to do it with a bow, but a rogue can only do it with a crossbow? Why can a fighter slip a two-handed axe into your armor's weak spot, but a rogue can only do it with a dagger? "Because you're a rogue, and that's what rogues do" is an arbitrary rules limit, not an in-character explanation.

[Imperial Overlord]

The paragon path is not mandatory. You can continue to take additional features of your second class or get the benefits of the paragon path. That's a choice.

The class abilities are balanced within context of overall class performance. Basically, if you're playing a wizard you're giving up things like AC and hit points to be able to smash whole groups at range with your encounter and daily powers, as well as having powerful utilities. A straight swap with fighter abilities isn't even. It's advantageous for a fighter to get wizard abilities. I'm reserving judgment on the swap feats because I haven't seen PCs min/max the swapping yet.

And it is at least 9 levels of suck for arcane trickster. Low levels suck for a wizard and you'll be trapped there for some time. In addition, you'll be a semi-competent rogue. You'll spend you're first nine levels unde rperforming and your next nine catching up. Under performing with low hit points and AC. That's a lot more than 9 levels of suck. It's playable, survivable, but its shitty game design for your character to have to reach 15th level to be on an even footing with the rest of the party just because you wanted to play a Gray Mouser type. Asking that the DM decrease the difficulty of encounters is concession that its a bad build.