Spells per day, rages, druid's wild form and other interesting abilities in 3.X allowed for much more creative and interesting combat then the 4 types and their classes.  A wizard in 4.0 is no different than a ranger in many regards and that really does bother me.  Compare this to the differences in 3.X or Pathfinder where the abilities are unique to a class.  What I meant by "attacking a static defense" is that all combat is the same for every character class.  Regardless of the character you build you have to fight in the same fashion as everyone else.(Maybe you do some AoE or ranged dmg but that's the only distinction.)For example one of my friends plays a Sorcerer so he can use spells that don't call for to hit rolls because he thinks he has really bad luck.  Having various battle systems for magic and combat made the game more interesting and feel more real.  4.0 is simply the same thing over and over again in combat especially once you're down to at-wills.  The combat drags with enemies that have such high health and can get very repetitive.


I can spend hours roleplaying in any game system or even without one.  The point is that the game rules try to change roleplaying into rolling a die after every sentence.(Just take a look at skill challenge examples in the PHB.) The DM can ignore skill challenges altogether but they are still a part of and a flaw of 4.0.


I never used miniatures before 4.0 and haven't used them since.  I may be in the minority but I don't like using miniatures in my roleplaying.  It takes away from the experience, requires setup time, costs a good deal of money, and my DM can remember where everything is if I forget.



It was Lawful/Chaotic and it was a very important part of designing dynamic characters.  I have played Lawful Evil kings, Chaotic Neutral marauders, Lawful Neutral judges, and Chaotic Good rebels among others.  Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil characters are not contradictory.  They can represent more intricate characters than "This guy is good!" or "This guy is bad!".  I will say that my group will use alignment consistently as a way of getting away with certain things.  The majority of my group will play chaotic good or chaotic neutral characters because they will perform good acts but they like to steal and gain power.  Alignment used to be a great generalization of morality and values but now is simply a good/evil detector.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:38, Thu 05 May 2011.

Spells per day = dailies. The new setup just makes it easier for spellcasters to be useful for more than just a handful of battles before the entire party needs to rest. Which (from a pure roleplaying standpoint) makes the "days" and duration of the quest more realistic than in 3.X.

Wild form - still exists. My druid character frequently shifts back and forth between her humanoid form and her wild shape. It actually annoys my party that I imitate a Striker rather than being the Controller that I'm -supposed- to be playing... especially when I take a bunch of hits and need healing early on.

So, I guess I don't understand your argument. The things you're saying don't exist in 4 DO still exist in 4.



... nope, still don't understand. Every class has a multitude of skills and abilities which are unique to them. And I'm not talking about the 4 classifications, I'm talking about the actual character classes.



While I'm sorry for your friend, I don't really see how making the combat rules the same for everyone is such a problem. I mean seriously, how does having everyone follow the same rulebook equate to a BAD thing? Because that's basically what they did. They said "You know, this is needlessly complex having everyone calculate their attack hits and damage differently. Hey, I know! We can make a regulated battle system and have everyone do it the same way! That way people will be able to try out different character classes without having to learn an entirely new battle system every time!"



While I cannot deny that combat can drag a bit when you have multiple high-health enemies, if you're regularly getting down to At-Will powers then you're not getting frequent enough extended rests. I don't think that having the different battle systems for magic vs. melee really made it feel more "real" though. I learned how to play in 3.0, and I never really wanted to switch from magic-user characters to melee characters because the battle systems were so complicated. Now I have no problem having a melee-type character or a magic-type character or both because the system makes more sense. Remember - it's not supposed to feel "real". It's supposed to be a GAME. :D



Just because something exists in the playbook doesn't mean the DM has to use it. In fact, I'm of the opinion that if a DM only uses skill challenges and discourages straight freeform roleplay, then the DM is doing it wrong.



Like I said, we used to use dice to represent our characters and the monsters. And our "maps" were drawn on graph paper. It's only recently that I've started playing with minis, and that only because my Epic level DM owns about a thousand. Literally. It's kind of ridiculous, actually.



That just sounds like you're stuck in the old-school... come to the 4th Ed. side! We have cookies! :D

But seriously, as far as I saw, alignments really weren't used much. Ever. It's much easier to say "unaligned" and then have a very broad range in which to play your character than it was to box them into a specific 3.X alignment because there was never any consistent way to define "Chaotic/Good" vs. "Chaotic/Neutral" or whatever. As it is, my epic level monk is actually a "Lawful/Good" character, and that DOES affect her choices. She won't ever throw her party members under the metaphorical bus (no matter how annoying the stupid pirate Archmage gets) or let them sacrifice themselves. She won't fight unless the enemy is demonstrably "evil" or doing evil to those that she's sworn to protect. And of course, she's loyal to her god above all else. On the other hand, my "unaligned" druid has no problem sending a flaming hawk at the head of the party bard when he gets too drunk, or ignoring everyone's insistence on fighting THIS ENEMY HERE rather than that gnoll over there (she has a problem with gnolls... they burned down her family tree) in favor of ripping out the throat of the gnoll. She's a little snarky and worships the Raven Queen. If I were to class my druid in 3.X, I don't know whether she would be Chaotic/Good or Chaotic/Neutral or True Neutral. There was, as I said before, no really consistent definition of those very specific and confining alignments.

*stops and breathes* There. So much typing. I hope my water didn't boil over while I was doing this!! *runs off to check the pot she left on the stove before coming out here just to look for a minute* -.-;;

Dailies can be used once per day.  Spells per day allowed for higher variation of attacks based on which spells are known and or prepared.  Also, by your definition of spells every class in 4.0 is a spellcaster.  It feels like WoW with every class having an action bar filled with powers except that rather being able to be spend points on them they are used at regular intervals that the game lays out for you.  While the "days" may be shorter at lower levels if you want to recharge your spellcaster's spells this in so necessary.  At low levels in 3.X a light crossbow can deal sufficient damage.


Wild Form is not the same because if I remember correctly it does nothing to your stats and only shifts which powers you can use and your appearance.(I don't even think you can change size.)  Wild form in 3.X gave the druid the unique ability to shift into other helpful forms that would make it have better combat abilities or useful skills.  In 4.0 it just changes your spellset to something that isn't unique.


What I mean is that every class uses abilities in the same way as opposed to the fundamental class differences in 3.X and Pathfinder.  In 3.X a fighter could not use the "Combat Maneuvers" which are essentially spells with the name changed.  They fought differently and added variety to the game.  Certain classes would have to prepare spells while others could cast them spontaneously.  The origin of the powers was actually different rather than claiming one class has "martial" or "arcane" powers.  4.0 treats every class the same.  If it was just simplicity then I would just consider it fine if not loyal to its predecessors.  Some games use very simple and quick simulations to represent combat and that's fine if that's the sort of game you want to play.  Instead it tries to make combat longer and treat the encounters as if they will be original when the game system tries to make every encounter encounter powers followed by at-wills with possibly dailies.



In 3.X all classes were following the same rulebook but they were different classes and acted like it.  This isn't Shadowrun the battle system is the same throughout the game (unlike 4.0 which makes monsters fight differently).  Learning to play a new class was fun because it was different and it was easy to learn.(At least for everyone I know.  If you had difficult learning the spells per day system or something it isn't the game's fault.)

I can see where our difference of opinions comes in though.  I prefer complex games and you prefer simple.  I doubt any amount arguing will change that.  However, if you want to play a simple game though I don't see why 4.0 is the way to go because the pacing is ridiculous for being so simple.



It felt much more real than the action bar concept that 4.0 uses.  Anyway switching classes appeals to some people because it's a change of pace from one they may have been playing for a long time and in 4.0 switching classes doesn't give that same feeling.  The 3.X system makes sense because magic isn't (or shouldn't be) the same as combat and 4.0 forgets this.  Also while a game isn't real realism is still a good thing to have.  Fiction that depicts a new setting with realism is praised and the same should be with game systems.



My DM didn't do this but that is how it is shown in the PHB and therefore is still a flaw in the system.



I meant that minis (or markers of any sort) and maps were not necessary before 4.0 and my group had never used them.(Well we did in our 40k meetings but not roleplaying.)



Your druid is obviously chaotic neutral.  The alignment system used pre 4.0 was much more in depth than the 4.0 system and not much more complex.  They were really only meant to start off a character (PC or NPC) and later they can be shifted if the character is dynamic.  The system in 4.0 is both vague and one dimensional which promotes one dimensional characters.  I found increasingly irritating playing Lawful Evil characters because I can't conceal that I'm evil (paladin powers) but I can't prove that I follow the law and am a man of my word.

Edit: I suggest we simply say we won't be able to convince each other of anything before this argument grows out of control.  I mean look at our posts exponential growth!
This message was last edited by the player at 21:00, Thu 05 May 2011.

Argument-shmargument. This is healthy debate! :D

I do agree that we should probably agree to disagree though. Even if -we- don't get sick of talking about this, other people surely will!! Although I will say one more thing: I don't like "simple" games. Simple games are boring. In fact, when it comes to video games, the more complex, the better. It's really just D&D. All the calculating and whatnot... has just always been confusing to me. Heck, I still have to ask for help recalculating values for things when I level up!! It was just worse when I was still playing 3.X is all. More things to calculate.

I tried playing a Chaotic/Neutral character once... and was eventually taken aside by the DM and more or less asked to change to Chaotic/Good because I clearly wasn't playing Chaotic/Neutral... I still don't really understand those classifications. -.-;;

I feel the need to weigh in on this friendly debate.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying Kagura-- it's simpler, it's been streamlined so that it's not nearly as difficult to bounce between a fighter and caster. Everyone fights on the same terms, as it were.

One thing I don't agree with you on is the alignments, I find the 3.X method to be extraordinarily well designed. It's a wonderful gradient of persona. Over the years, and through various debates on the exact subject I've come to the conclusion that chaotic neutral is the hardest to play in general. Because while you're not completely random---you are consistently driven on a whim.

Having two axis to place yourself between just gives more interesting and various points to land in.

Granted I'm saying this without really fully understanding the change--

I've played 4.0 but I didn't really enjoy it for a variety of reasons. Most of which involved the group I was playing with, and that at the time it was still fairly new to the people playing it.

Moving on Jioan--- although for the most part I agree with you in that -I- like 3.X better, some of your arguments clash in my opinion.

Saying that you like a richer more complex combat system, in my opinion doesn't make sense when you say you don't like the need for figures--- personally, I find that when I'm using all the rules for 3.X--- including things like partial cover, and range---direct lines, etc etc etc, figures are somewhat essential. Unless your DM is just doing bland, one on one combat, there are all sorts of various rules that can be in place to make the -interesting combat- you were talking about I feel like they are often necessary.

You should know, that I say this having lived a long life of game play that did not use figurines---and if cost is a problem for you, then graph paper and pencils ought to cover it, and i feel like in 4.0 it'd be the same. ( like grand total, 27 cents..since you should already have pencils if you're playing anyway. )

Uhm, so yeah. <3 3.X --- I don't hate 4.0, I don't think it's as good as its predecessor is all.

If you liked the core of 3.5 but found it too confusing I suggest checking out Pathfinder.  The game truly is the spiritual successor and cleans up a lot of unnecessary complications while maintaining and improving the complex system. (One notable change is that skills are easier to manipulate than in 3.5 or 4.0.)

Edit: Sorry Discreet I hadn't refreshed and didn't see your post there.  I do enjoy a more complex battle system but I don't like having the representation in front of me.  The reason for this is probably because when I first played D&D my friend described it as a "board game without a board" and that really resonated with me for some reason.  I have an active imagination and I like seeing the world from my own perspective.  I can't do this with any other type of game and its one of the reasons I roleplay.  As for the issues with determining combat me and the other DM in my group have a small map of the area on grid paper that the players don't see.  Any questions they have about line of sight or terrain can be answered by the DM.  Hope that clarified things for you.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:02, Fri 06 May 2011.

I don't think I'll be looking up Pathfinder anytime soon. I play D&D (and WoD) for the social aspect. That is to say, I play more because I want to hang out with people than for the game in and of itself.

Something you said in your response to Discreet suddenly made everything you've said crystal clear to me. You said:



When you do that, you may not realize it, but what you're doing is (in my opinion) something relatively rare. Allow me to explain. I have very good spatial perception. I can point to the exact center of a stationary object within a few millimeters with no problem. In spite, or perhaps because of this, I have trouble visualizing how multiple moving points relate to each other if I can't see them, and that's what you have in D&D. Unfortunately, writing down an example of combat movement completely obliterates the purpose of explaining my problem, because once it's written down, it can be remembered. And that's the problem for me, and I think for most people. Without a physical representation of where everyone and everything is in relation to each other, it's really REALLY hard to remember where that monster that -was- 20 feet directly in front of you at the end of your turn, but it's moved since then, and you don't remember where it moved...

So basically, your memory is obviously significantly better than the average D&D player's... or the average human being's, for that matter. Do you have photographic memory? Because that would be really awesome.

I think rather than having a visualization for everyone, the dm keeps a mini one on some grid-paper, or note paper out of view. >_>;--- he doesn't have an eidetic/ photographic imagination, he just prefers to keep it up in his noggin.

What Discreet said is correct, but I rarely have to ask questions about the map once they've been said once.

Seems unfair to make the DM do that one more thing. And easier to just let everyone see what's going on. *shrugs* Still a better memory than me... can I borrow yours until I've taken my Research final this afternoon jioan?

Normally I would, but I need it for my World History final in a couple hours. :)

Also, I usually DM and I don't mind doing it.  The other DM in my group likes his roleplaying games miniature free and thinks making the smaller map is easier than making the larger one.  Art doesn't matter, spoilers don't need to be hidden, and it's easier than making a larger version.

Honestly, I've never tried 4th edition, and from all the reviews I've heard, I don't know if I will. It's not even whether or not I want to waste the money, it's more the fact that I've finally gotten good at 3.5 rules (I didn't decide to switch from 2nd to 3.5 up until about two years ago), so learning ANOTHER set of rules would just screw me. I've already half-forgotten 2nd edition rules, not from a bad memory, just from getting the two confused sometimes. And since I do still like playing 2nd edition... XD

4th edition rules aren't really that difficult to learn. And if you don't want to spend the money on it... find a friend. :D

While the rules are not very complicated they do have a different feel than previous editions and will be harder to mix up.  I'm suggesting Pathfinder if you want something that builds on the 3.5 rules though.

I started looking at the Monster Manual entries in 4th edition and sat up straight in my seat.  All the sudden there were all sorts of symbols and differences.  I think the overall effect would be very cool and helpful, but definitely a little different.

My pet peeve with systems like D&D is that it give players the idea that everything is locked in.  So when a cleric casts a mage spell, they say, "He can't do that."  Then I explain that the rules are for players, not the entire world and many situations could exist when someone actually could.  Or when they believe they know a monster and I modify it.  I prefer instead to have a world where, even though the players have rules and boundaries, the world itself is unlimited.

My DMs constantly modify monsters. Sometimes it makes things easier for us... mostly not though. Usually it seems more like they're trying for a TPK...

TPK?

I like to change names of monsters.  For example, I use a scandinavian derivative instead of the word "troll."  This helps make things seem more exotic.

I love my 3.5.  I'm growing to love my 4.0 and Essentials, though Essentials can be a little locked in place.  I've been playing the Essentials Encounters, which are quite fun.  You usually range from 1st to 3rd level before the game is done, and you can choose what kind of character you wish to play.  Which reminds me, I need a new char for Wednesday... lol

I find good points and bad points to each system, so it's basically a matter of do you want something streamlined down, like 4.0, or something that can take more time to create a character, because you have SO MANY OPTIONS!  I truly miss my dervish... such fun characters to play.  And gestalt, though I've forgotten how to create those.

The game I run(or try to, since I can occasionally have issues remembering certain kinds of rules) is Exalted from White Wolf.  I love playing either oWoD or nWoD, but Exalted was the first game I ever ran.  It demands you do over the top stuff, like when watching Xena or Hercules, or anime.  It's a blast to run, a blast to play in, and characters are quite customizable.  It focuses on social aspects as well as combat.

TPK = Total Party Kill

They won't generally tell us the names of the monsters, and we generally don't ask. Usually we just go "Okay, let's kill it. Weakest defense and vulnerabilities? Reflex, you say? Fine. I hit it in the Reflex." I'm very good at hitting things in the Reflex. And occasionally the Fortitude. Not so much on the Will.

Your DM tells you the weakest attribute of the monster?  And what about the plot?  With the exception of random encounters shouldn't you be fighting things for a purpose?

Two of us have an item (Paragon tier) that allows us to look at a monster and know its weakest defense and vulnerabilities. It's called a Foe Stone, and it is very very useful. It would be MORE useful if it would tell us about resistances too... because hardly anything at Epic tier has vulnerabilities to anything... >.<

Our purpose for fighting is that waaaayyyy back when the party were still level 1 or something, to save the world from destruction, each party member had to release a pair of ancient and powerful beings back into the regular planes of existence. Now, to prevent THEM from destroying the Prime Material Plane, we have to travel around and find these creatures (one dragon and one rakshasa for each party member except me... because I came in later - we've managed to take out six of the the ten released) and destroy them. This is beginning to prove more difficult than originally anticipated because 1.) of the remaining godlike creatures, one of the rakshasas has replaced the god(dess?) of the Silver Flame and is hiding in Celestia... where the entire party is forbidden to go on pain of excruciatingly painful and agonizing death, and the other... well, all of our attempts to ask about HER from oracles have come back with "No such creature exists." responses. This is what we get for trying to find a prescient rakshasa who goes by the moniker "The Sage of Tomorrow". -.- Oh, and apparently there's another godlike rakshasa pulling our strings in some convoluted scheme to escape it's own imprisonment. We just found out about THAT one.

We don't actually see that much in the way of "random" encounters. Although I suppose those living spells that we keep running into could be counted as "random" (we destroyed a dragon whose powers were linked to magic... and the result was that there are now living spells running around and popping up inopportunely...). And I suppose the battles linked to our pursuits of our assorted Epic Destinies could also be counted as random (we just recently had to help a pair of powerful Far Realm creatures decide a resolution to a conflict between them... by defeating one of their two champions. Unfortunately, the champions were a Bronze Dragon and a Gibbering Orb, and we had to fight them both at the same time... -.-). THAT wasn't fun. The stupid Orb kept giving us nasty status effects. Fortunately, it also kept missing my Will... whenever that happened, it took 10 damage. I did this about 5 times over the course of the fight.

Back to my high school days (and those are the most strange for roleplaying, aren't they)...  We had a player who frequently didn't show up, was very unserious about the game, and quite annoying in real life.  His character in our scifi game was called "George Washington."  Well, George was soon used as the tester for every suspected trap, flimsy-looking bridge, and dialogue with mean looking monsters.  His player never returned, and the character will probably never forgive him for that...after his scorching, falling, burning, bruising, maiming encounters, and his use as a love object by some species or another.

And speaking of skills and stats...

I was playing an elven bard in a 3.5 campaign(or 3.0, but think it was 3.5) in a homebrew world.  The elves were more plainsdwellers and somewhat nomadic, having been routed from their homelands by orcs and forced to live elsewhere, on the other side of some seriously dangerous mountains.  The party I was in had a variety of characters I can't recall except for the rogue who managed to get caught in a simple trap that hoisted him into the air, suspended by a rope around his ankle, my bard, and... the dwarven cleric.

Now this cleric was a strange thing.  He had an 8 in charisma, which isn't very good for a cleric, what with turning undead and all.  But other than often annoying the other party members with his bluntness, we were fine.  Until...

Now, when traveling, occasionally you meet things you really don't want to have to fight.  Like... the adult blue dragon in the middle of the night as you leave a city.  He came after us, wondering about another dragon's scent on our group.  Now, I, the elven bard with the charisma of 20, was dealing quite well with the dragon, calming it, even getting into friendly polite talks with it.  You'd think that would be a thing to leave alone, right?

We learned that night what happens when a dwarven cleric with an 8 charisma decides to say that they were in a hurry and we should just kill the beast and be done with it, or something in that vein.  Needless to say, the dragon was not impressed.  It breathed at the cleric... and blue dragons have lightning.  One of the other members wanted to stick his metal shield in the way, then was reminded of the lightning.  He changed his mind, good for him.  Not good for the dwarf.  He got a nice huge shock, and it was the first time I've ever heard of a dwarf with permed hair and beard, that smoked.  Literally.

Since then, it's kind of been a catchphrase... "Let the bard handle things."  We have no idea why...

A couple years ago my gaming group doubled.  We originally had 3 players and a DM who all knew each other and knew how to play the game.  I was starting a new campaign and recruited one player who recruited 3 of his friends quite unexpectedly.  This created some tension between the two factions of players and made for some humorous group dynamics.

The first adventure was a standard kobold warcamp raid with a few twists to get the new players comfortable the rules. One of the veteran players (a fighter) was busy and was unable to show up.  In any case, everything was going smoothly until they attempted to raid a large hut and a dragon broke through the wall in front of them ready to kill them all.  Now at this point the newer players were debating the safest way to run away while the veterans threatened to attack whoever tried to run away first.  They very nearly came to blows until one of the veterans came up with the idea to have the fighter be the only one to engage in melee combat and everyone else use ranged weapons from out of range of the fire.  If the fighter died (which he didn't expect) they could still run.  After much debate about the precise distance, whether or not they should group up, and what to do if more enemies appear.  This has all taken about half an hour before the plan is finally put into motion.  The fighter makes his first swing and... it goes right through!  The dragon was just a two part trap with an illusion and an explosive in the wall.  Now the scattered party was attacked by several kobolds waiting for an opportune moment to strike and two of the characters nearly died.  At the end of the fight it was the fighter intended to be a sacrifice who had lost the least amount of hit points.

I snorted my soda over that... lol