The Gaming Den

PhoneLobster wrote: No, they didn't. This was before announcement of 4th ed not long after saga edition came out at the HEIGHT of its sales in the densest lair of of its densest fan boys.

Ah perhaps my timing is off. I know for myself seeing Saga mechanics made me want to pre-empt 4th somewhat.

Yeah your feat could like give you +1 to attack OR it could give you a +16 force attack vs targets mind defense to stun them or something.


That was NOT a beautiful choice.

There weren't that many +1 attack feats I believe. The Martial Arts line of feats gave you +1 Ref Defense which was nice compared to what 3.5 gave us. The improved defenses feat was cool too.

There is no doubt that force training is a very powerful feat, but I thought that Force Training was one of the few feats that I've seen from Wotc that I thought was appropriately powered. Granted of course that I see some laziness in saga where they have the martial arts feat which gives +1 Defense right next to Dodge which gives +1 Defense vs. 1 opponent.

WTF? That is just plain ridiculous. The prestige class requirements leant strongly to the HIGH end. They certainly weren't get in by or before 5th level affairs like d20 modern (not to say those were good). And even if you DID get in, so what, they sucked!

The Jedi Knight Prestige Class was not hard to qualify for and rather than being forced to gain prestige class abilities in a certain order, I could now choose which ones I liked. This was a vast improvement as far as I was concerned.

I cannot even BEGIN to imagine why. Feats by saga edition had proven and been reinforced to be inconsistent, unpleasant and irrelevant. Talents was a transparent reimagining of class abilities to turn them into obvious clones of feats (lifted from d20 modern, the rightly least popular d20 ever, until saga). And talents were now weakened and made even more bland if that can be imagined!

This is true that the difference between talents and feats is rather vague. But this is a better problem to have than 3.5's class ability structure.

It's like saying "I liked the paradigm where I got nothing but additional +1 bonuses to random crap every level and had to pretend that was a cool class feature!"

And that seems to be where fourth edition is going. +1 to random crap land.

Oh I definitely see some problems as well. Seeing that the best Kensai ability is getting +1 to attack with one weapon, is not a good sign.

However, now that I'm older than I was when 3rd edition came out I've realized that I have the power to change the rules that Wotc puts out to make a better game. So, the lacking parts that I see in the rules, I can change at least when I DM.

I like saga because the leveling structure expands my creativity. The maneuvers from ToB totally rocked my world as a different way to handle spells and martial powers.

To sum up, the ideas and the possibilities with saga, tob, 4th edition, really intrigue me. How Wotc will apply them may leave something to be desired of course. However, I feel that fixing 4e's designer decisions will be easier than fixing 3e's designer decisions.

What the heck?

You HAVE to have at least seven levels of jedi to be a jedi knight. Not be light saber fighting 50/50 soldier/jedi or scoundrel/jedi thats SEVEN LEVELS OF A SET CLASS. That is NOT easy to get into.

And the Saga talent system being better than the 3.x class abilities?

The main problem with 3.x class abilities is that some of them are strictly inferior. Saga edition brings us MORE strictly inferior class abilities and then makes it even worse by allowing you to select them in combinations which either stack their way out of strictly inferior or borrow their way deeper into it!

And is there any reasoning at all behind why fixing 4th edition design will be easier than fixing 3rd?

Look. Go read this old mess, Here
Saga sucks like a black hole formed from donkey's balls. Any attempt to use or emulate it is a bad idea.

PhoneLobster wrote:SEVEN LEVELS OF A SET CLASS

According to my copy of SAGA it's just 7th level, not seven levels of a set class.

Voss wrote:And no sphere, I don't imply that his other choices could be better. (With the exception of cleave, because that does suck) I'm saying he has more options than the handful we've seen. It seemed relevant, since that seemed to be root of your rant.

Is this the same argument about the 3e Fighter? That he has tons of class abilities (feats in 3e, exploits in 4e) to choose from? (but can only choose a few) Then the 4e Fighter fails in the same way as the 3e Fighter.

Voss wrote:Of course, I didn't realize that things weren't 'options' if you just didn't like them. It certainly makes discussion pointless.

Let me clarify then. I consider options to be different actions you can take which change the battlefield in different ways. In 3e, bull rushing, disarming, grappling, and tripping are all unique and different actions you can take to change the battlefield in different ways.

You are right, I don't like the 4e "options". I do not consider different numbers on a sheet to be interesting combat "options".

I knew 4e was coming out. I could feel it in my geekial lobe.
Many Wiz board members did.
Because discussion of was being suppressed and "neither confirmed nor denied" long before the debut.

sigma999 wrote:I knew 4e was coming out. I could feel it in my geekial lobe.
Many Wiz board members did.
Because discussion of was being suppressed and "neither confirmed nor denied" long before the debut.

I knew it was coming when there were many more "fluff" heavy books coming out then "crunch" heavy

Leress wrote:I knew it was coming when there were many more "fluff" heavy books coming out then "crunch" heavy

Good point. That was an odd occurence but I didn't connect it with 4e.
I just figured it was because they were running out of ideas.

sigma999 wrote:

Leress wrote:I knew it was coming when there were many more "fluff" heavy books coming out then "crunch" heavy

Good point. That was an odd occurence but I didn't connect it with 4e.
I just figured it was because they were running out of ideas.

That too...running out of ideas=New edition

Even though everyone on the WOTC boards was talking about wanting more epic material and another environment book (dealing with jungles and forest)
I dubbed "Forest Trek"

Nah, it'd need to be... "It's Green Outside" or something.

But there were signs - the lack of new ideas from WotC, the tone of the boards (with 4E threads springing up all the time, and getting stamped out just as quickly), and so many random "Let's test this!" books not too long before that...

When Magic of Incarnum came out at a similar time to Tome of Magic, it was obvious that they were gearing up for 4e. Both books were so out there and test groupish that I announced the 4e countdown right then an there. But WotC at the time denied that they were working on 4e, and said explicitly that they would give people more than a year in warning time before they released 4e.

And while those assurances were false, many people took them at their word.

Suckers.

-Username17

I keep getting reminded of fighter level 3 when I see 4e preview stuff. A level just means you have to go and update a bunch of numbers on your character sheet. I like the low level game where goblins are enemies and you can't just take over a village. But that doesn't mean I like levels that don't mean much. I would far prefer to stay level one for three times as long rather than use 3.x's first three levels of fighter. Most of leveling up is tedious accounting and doesn't really change your character a lot.

+1 to x bonuses can bugger off.

Regarding Trip/Disarm/Grapple/Sunder, in order to be effective with those in 3e, you pretty much had to specialize in them, so if we wait until the books for 4e are available, and find there are actually pickable powers at properly low levels for those, then that problem will be solved, or at least not so bad, yes?

Assuming that you actually can get the ability to do that stuff in 4e, what is the next big problem?

Fwib wrote:Assuming that you actually can get the ability to do that stuff in 4e, what is the next big problem?

Actually, we're still in the same problem: that it'd be easy to have those actions (well, except possibly sunder, because it might pose the economic problem) matter when performed by anyone.

Fwib wrote:Regarding Trip/Disarm/Grapple/Sunder, in order to be effective with those in 3e, you pretty much had to specialize in them...

True. That is a fundamental problem with 3e, everything goes of the RNG. So after low levels you need to specialize to keep up.

Fwib wrote:...so if we wait until the books for 4e are available, and find there are actually pickable powers at properly low levels for those, then that problem will be solved, or at least not so bad, yes?

No. It will be worse. While 3e has fundamental problems with the RNG, 4e has fundamental problems with having different, interesting abilities for a character. For example, lets assume that the 4e Fighter can choose one of those universally usable* 3e abilities every level after first. That means that a 4e Fighter has to be ~5th level before he has the abilities of a 1st level 3e Fighter.

The point here is that there is such a fundamental lack of interesting abilities for the 4e fighter** that the 3e Fighter has substantially more abilities. And the 3e Fighter is an example of an uninteresting class in 3e.

Fwib wrote:Assuming that you actually can get the ability to do that stuff in 4e, what is the next big problem?

It is still a problem because the 4e Fighter has to spend class abilities to be as interesting as a 1st level 3e Fighter (or Warrior for that matter).

*(Trip, Disarm, Grapple, Sunder, threaten with reach)
**(At least at early levels. Also true of other 4e classes)

Since all the non-utility at-will powers seem to be attacks that do 1W damage and have a minor side effect, would there be any problem in giving a level 1 fighter all the at-will level 1 fighter exploits, if the playing group liked having lots of combat options each?

MartinHarper wrote:Since all the non-utility at-will powers seem to be attacks that do 1W damage and have a minor side effect, would there be any problem in giving a level 1 fighter all the at-will level 1 fighter exploits, if the playing group liked having lots of combat options each?

Probably not. You would have a lot more choice, and possibly a lot more bookkeeping. However, as I've said before I don't think they are interesting in the first place.
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A new 4th edition excerpt is up: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080502a

WotC wrote:Racial Feats (Heroic Tier)

Name Prerequisites Benefit
Action Surge Human +3 to attacks when you spend an action point
Dodge Giants Dwarf +1 to AC and Reflex against attacks of Large or larger foes
Dragonborn Frenzy Dragonborn +2 damage when bloodied
Dragonborn Senses Dragonborn Low-light vision, +1 to Perception
Dwarven Weapon Training Dwarf +2 damage and proficiency with axes and hammers
Eladrin Soldier Eladrin +2 damage and proficiency with longswords and spears
Elven Precision Elf +2 to reroll with elven accuracy
Enlarged Dragon Breath Dragonborn, dragon breath racial power Dragon breath becomes blast 5
Ferocious Rebuke Tiefling, infernal wrath racial power Push 1 square with infernal wrath
Group Insight Half-Elf Grant allies +1 to Insight and initiative
Halfling Agility Halfling, second chance racial power Attacker takes a –2 penalty with second chance reroll
Human Perseverance Human +1 to saving throws
Light Step Elf Add to overland speed of group, +1 to Acrobatics and Stealth
Lost in the Crowd Halfling +2 to AC when adjacent to at least two larger enemies

So, a total of 11 out of the 14 example racial feats are just bigger numbers. The three racial feats that actually allow you to do something are:
-Low-light vision
-Push 1 square with infernal wrath
-Add to overland speed of group

And Dodge Giants, despite claims that it matters at all levels, doesn't matter even at whatever level, even 1, it's picked.

Well at least it applies to anything bigger than a dwarf, rather than just the subspecies of humanoids-that-are-not-actually-humanoids.
For instance in 3.x you might fight a giant that turns out to be an Outsider by means of template.
Woops! No bonus.
But yes it should indeed mean something.
Look at the human ability.. +3 attack roll when using action points... and as long as they've redone action points to a state better than Eberrons massive fail "You get X amount each level", that's quite nice. Throws off the RNG at low levels.
And for an archer pumping out handfuls of arrows every round, hell.. I'd take that, even if it is a tiny numerical bonus, but only if we have AP recover more often than in Eberron.

sigma999 wrote: For instance in 3.x you might fight a giant that turns out to be an Outsider by means of template.
Woops! No bonus.

Outsider (Augmented Giant)

CatharzGodfoot wrote:

sigma999 wrote: For instance in 3.x you might fight a giant that turns out to be an Outsider by means of template.
Woops! No bonus.

Outsider (Augmented Giant)

http://dndsrd.net/monstersTtoZ.html#titan

Looks like a Giant.
Moves like a Giant.
Smells like a Giant.
.... but it ain't no Giant.