The Gaming Den

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Somebody must really be bored or hate WotC enough to be able to get by with this website up without having it taken down.

Well there has probably been many around here, but what from 4th do you think would be good to stay, while people figure out about this website and its purpose as we read the news for a lawsuit form HASBRO to the owner.

I for one like residuum from 4th. I think there is a lot there that could be developed into something bigger, with the right support system for an economy and magic item system.

I'd like to be able to offer a good point of 4E up, but I'm really drawing a blank here.

The good from 4e:

• Everybody is finally on the same power schedule.
• Ease of teaching any single class to new players (no more "Eric's new, he won't know how to play a wizard, so give him a fighter")
• Everybody is on the RNG (at least for combat) for all levels
• Progress towards removing the setting-breaking stuff out and putting it into optional rituals. DMs stuck in prior editions are no longer blindsided by gandalf using scry+teleport+contingent teleport to complete the ringbearer's quest in 12 seconds. (Of course I've been saying for years that such DMs should have read the rulebooks before letting Gandalf come in at 11th level)
• No dead levels of advancement - everybody has at least one meaningful choice at each new level.
• PCs no longer die due to a single failed save. Even most really hosey monster attacks take 2 or 3 successive failed saves to force players to roll up a new character

I think giving everyone the option to learn to cast utility spells at the cost of just a skill and a feat was a good idea, even if it was done in a horrible way that makes said non-combat utility magic as worthless and/or unusable as possible.

Everybody is on the RNG (at least for combat) for all levels

Josh, you know that is a load of horse shit.

-Username17

No more rolled hit points is a good thing from 4e (if 5e were to have hit points).

I'm sure there's a couple more that Josh didn't cover.

Josh wrote:No dead levels of advancement - everybody has at least one meaningful choice at each new level.

Don't tell you you also think that classes have more to do in 4th Edition than they did in 3rd, too.

Even before we get into the issues of levels 4, 8, 14, 18, 24, and 28 being completely worthless except for boosting your numbers (you know, sort of like fighter levels did in 3rd Edition), paragon paths and epic destinies only compound the problem. Your choices are fixed for you; if you wanted to be a bow ranger who took up Pit Fighter, for instance, all of the powers and probably the 11th level class feature ability is worthless to you.

3E had this problem, too, but you could at least bail out of a MC or PrC if it wasn't doing anything for you. You can't do that in 4E. I didn't consider a level filled up with crap like 'gain +2 to skill checks on a boat' a Not-Empty level in 3rd Edition and I definitely don't consider that a Not-Empty level in 4th.

That is one canard (and I mean it in the sense of someone deliberately creating a story they know to be false to slur some target) I particularly despise 4E propagating, even more than the 'you can't create a fail character' one. If people honestly believe that 4E's model is how you make a character that isn't filled up with empty levels then there's no way we're going to have a better edition. At least people are starting to realize that the classes are imbalanced.

"Progress towards removing the setting-breaking stuff out and putting it into optional rituals. DMs stuck in prior editions are no longer blindsided by gandalf using scry+teleport+contingent teleport to complete the ringbearer's quest in 12 seconds. (Of course I've been saying for years that such DMs should have read the rulebooks before letting Gandalf come in at 11th level)"

If an adventure can be solved by a single pc casting three rounds worth of fourth/fifth level spells, the problem is that it is a bad adventure not that the spells are over powered.

FrankTrollman wrote:

Everybody is on the RNG (at least for combat) for all levels

Josh, you know that is a load of horse shit.

-Username17

Well, they are damn sure closer to being on the RNG than in 3e, where you got a +20 to hit out of a 1st level spell, and saves could diverge by 20 points before level 3.

Seriously what's the biggest to-hit or defense RNG breaker in 4e?

Off the top of my head a demigod with righteous brand comboed with the Moon Domian feat and using weapon of the gods gives a 14 point AC shift to the next ally to attack - and you can likely dumpster dive to raise that a bit more.. For comparison, a 13th level wizard in 3e gets to just say "okay Bob, you hit, so be sure to Power Attack for the maximum"

Sure it's not perfect, sure 4e skills bonuses are still fubar for no damned good reason, sure things get further off the RNG as more books are released (I'm looking at you orbizard), but it's at least an improvement.

Lago wrote: Don't tell you you also think that classes have more to do in 4th Edition than they did in 3rd, too

They don't, and I never said they did.

However they spread that "do much less" far more evenly over the stretched out 30 levels of 4e than the 3e ever did with it's "world-shaking awesomeness more awesome than your last awesomeness" did over a mere 20 level.

In 3e, any character not either

• A primary spellcaster
• Heavily Multiclassed
• Generated using Tome material

Gets to have levels where they get like a +1 to BAB, a +1 to a save or two and 2-4 skill points to put into the skills they have already decided to max out anyways. If they get anything else, it's already spelled out -that's not a way to engage the player to be excited about advancement.

In 4e, every single level you are choosing a power and/or a feat and/or a paragon path and/or an epic destiny. Yes, those feats and powers and such generally seem crappy in comparison to their 3e versions, and 4e never lets PCs do some of the things that 3e characters take for granted. But at least in 4e, the player has meaningful input at each advancement

If an adventure can be solved by a single pc casting three rounds worth of fourth/fifth level spells, the problem is that it is a bad adventure not that the spells are over powered.

Because I'm already fishing for trouble here, I'm gonna argue that one.

Yes, it's a bad adventure - but that's a symptom of the problem that adventure author/DM did not understand the power level of characters of that level and what appropriate challenges are when they designed the adventure. And that can happen because such an author/DM may believe that the game is easily capable of replicating campaigns from popular fantasy works - from descriptions and marketing of D&D, this is quite a reasonable assumption for one to make.

However, 3e D&D has a built in, but non-obvious assumption, that "wizard who can fight a Balor" automatically means "wizard who can teleport across countries" - and due to The limits of magic in an RPG context, that means a DM cannot have Gandalf in their LotR campaign - In 3e terms, either that character cannot fight a Balor, or there is no reason for that character to be riding Shadowfax. But since this is a non-obvious assumption, it leads to people without a bunch of system mastery designing adventures that don't take it into account. This leads to bad adventures, which leads to bad gaming experiences, which leads to total protonic reversal - all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

Furthermore, people with only moderate amounts of system mastery tend to "solve" such an issue by nerfing the crap out of PC abilities. Game sessions turn into:
DM: Dude, you can't fucking teleport to Mount Doom.
Player: And Why Not, because the PHB totally says I get teleport and the teleport desciption says it can take me to Mount Doom?
DM: Dude, you can't it's like warded against teleport. Sauron's been around since the first age, he totally knows Forbiddence and epic spells and stuff.
Player: Wasn't that just a 10' cube per level...I see where you're trying to railroad us.... How about the cleric casts Wind Walk instead.
DM: Did I mention the hurricane in mordor?

I can't see how that's a enjoyable game for people on either side of the table and it should be avoided.

Now 4e avoids this by ditching the base assumption about out-of-combat powers, and people can totally run 4e games with wizards who can fight a Balor, but still ride horses around. All the setting-breaking stuff is distinct from the combat abilities and packaged into rituals.

It's far from an optimal solution and it's a downright pile of lazy fail compared to making the power guidelines for levels obvious and explicit and then holding adventure designers to those - but the 4e method allows more adventures for more characters and for them to turn out alright even when written by authors/DMs with less expertise. And 'll stick to my guns here and says that's a fucking improvement in the system over 3e.

Josh_Kablack wrote:The good from 4e:

• Everybody is finally on the same power schedule.
• Ease of teaching any single class to new players (no more "Eric's new, he won't know how to play a wizard, so give him a fighter")
• Everybody is on the RNG (at least for combat) for all levels
• Progress towards removing the setting-breaking stuff out and putting it into optional rituals. DMs stuck in prior editions are no longer blindsided by gandalf using scry+teleport+contingent teleport to complete the ringbearer's quest in 12 seconds. (Of course I've been saying for years that such DMs should have read the rulebooks before letting Gandalf come in at 11th level)
• No dead levels of advancement - everybody has at least one meaningful choice at each new level.
• PCs no longer die due to a single failed save. Even most really hosey monster attacks take 2 or 3 successive failed saves to force players to roll up a new character

I really think you should qualify these with a "good ideas, but failed execution".

Gets to have levels where they get like a +1 to BAB, a +1 to a save or two and 2-4 skill points to put into the skills they have already decided to max out anyways. If they get anything else, it's already spelled out -that's not a way to engage the player to be excited about advancement.

In 4e, every single level you are choosing a power and/or a feat and/or a paragon path and/or an epic destiny. Yes, those feats and powers and such generally seem crappy in comparison to their 3e versions, and 4e never lets PCs do some of the things that 3e characters take for granted. But at least in 4e, the player has meaningful input at each advancement

Input? You mean how after you make your decision for a paragon path or an epic destiny you have over half of your advancement decided for the next 10 levels?

The 'get something new every level' only works if it's something you want, which is just often not the case; people select Swordmaster, for example even if it only has two features that they want. The other four things just sit dead. There are entire paragon paths and epic destinies people select just for one killer app--the Morninglord and Demigod are perfect examples.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:

Gets to have levels where they get like a +1 to BAB, a +1 to a save or two and 2-4 skill points to put into the skills they have already decided to max out anyways. If they get anything else, it's already spelled out -that's not a way to engage the player to be excited about advancement.

In 4e, every single level you are choosing a power and/or a feat and/or a paragon path and/or an epic destiny. Yes, those feats and powers and such generally seem crappy in comparison to their 3e versions, and 4e never lets PCs do some of the things that 3e characters take for granted. But at least in 4e, the player has meaningful input at each advancement

Input? You mean how after you make your decision for a paragon path or an epic destiny you have over half of your advancement decided for the next 10 levels?

The 'get something new every level' only works if it's something you want, which is just often not the case; people select Swordmaster, for example even if it only has two features that they want. The other four things just sit dead. There are entire paragon paths and epic destinies people select just for one killer app--the Morninglord and Demigod are perfect examples.

This is my problem with paths/destinies as well. They're set in stone, the same way prestige classes only added a fairly limited number of choices - and then, by necessity and player demand, proliferated into the hundreds. Are we really going to let WOTC just redo the 'Complete' series of books as paragon paths and be happy with it? I hope not.

My personal goal is to homebrew a hybrid of 3.5/4.0/Tome of Battle into a usable d20 base system that doesn't even have classes anymore, just a system by which you can 'purchase' feats, skills, and abilities on a tiered basis. Attributes would still increase on a level schedule, and magic items would be retooled to scale by level as well and not be 'must-buy' skill enhancers and armor boosters. The current system is just set advancement paths with one of three possible powers every few levels...that's just blatantly taking from the Diablo/WOW model. You leveled! Now pick either the defensive, offensive, or quirky ability! Yay!

Things I do like, at least in their intention:

Breaking magic into rituals and reusable powers
Giving fighters more abilities
Making the 'base' setting and planes more interesting
Coming revision of Dark Sun (maybe? I can hope?)
Skill system simplification
Saves/defenses rework

Things I'm not sure about

Continued use of square grids for minis (grrrr!)
Yet another edition of FR (every edition has less material!)
Necessity to pile on combat encounters for a challenge (healing surge attrition model)

Things that make me sad

'Paragon paths' and 'epic destinies'
The quality of writing in the PHB, dumbed down
Gimmicky new races and pigeonholing of the same
Names of powers, paper and pencil MMORPG feeling
Bad scaling of items and powers
PCs still ridiculously OP starting around level 12
Hardcore profiteering in how material is being published (it was already bad enough, come on...)

Input? You mean how after you make your decision for a paragon path or an epic destiny you have over half of your advancement decided for the next 10 levels?

Yeah, but you still get class powers and feat selection during those levels.

That's an improvement over all too many published 3e prestige classes.

Hegemonic wrote:Making the 'base' setting and planes more interesting

Really? I love the pseudo-planescale default of 3e. It's like having a bunch of quirky countries to visit.

Josh_Kablack wrote:

Input? You mean how after you make your decision for a paragon path or an epic destiny you have over half of your advancement decided for the next 10 levels?

Yeah, but you still get class powers and feat selection during those levels.

That's an improvement over all too many published 3e prestige classes.

I'd argue that you don't actually get anything at all. There are 14 conditions that you can inflict on people, most of which are various ways of inflicting penalties on people while you damage them but that doesn't matter because your class only gets access to a few of them.

Aside from a few interesting class-specific powers, you can honestly say that each level doesn't give any choices at all because all choices are basically the same and not meaningful. It's like getting to choose between Coke and Pepsi when you don't like colas, and actually writing down a new power is more of a chore than a reward.

I'm sure that people who like math get a lot out of the various damage formulas and the different stats they use, but to someone like me who made it to Calculus and plum gave up on math, my eyes almost immediately glaze over. I can seriously get more problem-solving utility by purchasing some mundane piece of equipment like a rope or some pitons; turning small numbers into bigger numbers rarely solves problems.

Well either 4e choices are meaningful, or it really is impossible to create a fail character in 4e, so why don't you argue with Lago about that?

Preferably for several pages, overnight.

I think it isn't that choices aren't meaningful, but that they are usually not interesting and some of them are outright bad.

I'm with Josh in that 4e is definitely a lot more balanced/on the RNG, than 3e, I just think that it lost too much in the process of making that accomplishment.

And to be fair to LotR adventures, it isn't just DnD supa powa magic that makes the mission totally frickin easy, LotR characters already had the means to complete the mission totally easily.

Josh_Kablack wrote:Well either 4e choices are meaningful, or it really is impossible to create a fail character in 4e, so why don't you argue with Lago about that?

Preferably for several pages, overnight.

The only way to make a fail character is if you basically deliberately try to make a weak character by choosing powers that don't work well with your stats.

I mean, just because something can be minimally optimized doesn't mean your choices are truly meaningful.

Seriously..... if your criteria for a game is "every choice is obvious to an idiot", then 4e is the perfect game for you. You get the illusion of skill without the pesky need for mastering anything.

Why does everyone bring up the "Gandalf can teleport" fallacy up?

For all we know, Gandalf can't even cast the spell.

Remember, he's not a wizard at all. He's an Outsider that looks like a human, and has a few at-will spells, and really high mental stats. Probably a lot of skills too.

Gandalf was a D&D wizard the same way that I'm the king of the potato men.



for 4e.... unbalanced, and meaningless character decisions.

I think that 3.0 hit a sweet spot in terms of listed choices; and balance.

4e and 2e are not very full on choice from the get-go; and for 2e you can get a game very close to 3e if you include enough splatbooks, like the complete handbooks, and the players options books. However, they're still not the same.

In 3e, I can choose to build a fighter who relies on Int, and make it work.

Really, that's what I find to be the real stress point of a system:

"What is the most unlikely character, and how successful can they be."

If the answer is "you make it, it will probably find a niche, and work as a character"; then the system is probably pretty decent. Some things may be overly powerful, but if even the weakest PCs don't suck hose, then the system is actually pretty decent.

Every level gives you one of three things:

• The choice of a new power.
  The choice to replace one of the powers you have with another one from a higher level list.
  The choice of one feat.

And while I will grant that the first two are choices (even if they are boring choices in 4e), the last one is just the option to get a stacking bonus you need to stay on the RNG or to slip a little bit behind the RNG. That's not a choice at all.

So no. I don't think that anyone is out of line arguing that it is easy to make a fail character on accident and that you don't have meaningful choices every level. Feats as defined in late cycle 3.5 and 4e just need to go away. Full stop. All they add to the game is a "choice" to fail.

-Username17

This seems like it might be the right place to ask while edition issues are being talked about: What do folks think of the Unearthed Arcana Generic Classes? I mean, assuming that you rework the scale a bit to move the feats and feature options onto the Tome scale of things for the Warrior and Skilluser classes.

Is too much versatility in a class system just as bad as no meaningful options? Does it destroy the point of the classes in the first place? I guess the real core of what I'm wondering has to do with how you can mix level and point build systems, if you can at all. I like the freedom of point systems, but then when I GM they're a trouble to make foes for, unless you just ballpark everything, which doesn't seem as "official", and takes a great deal more system mastery to get right.

Josh_Kablack wrote: [*]Ease of teaching any single class to new players (no more "Eric's new, he won't know how to play a wizard, so give him a fighter")

???? Now everyone is as hard or nearly to learn as wizards were (yes, there are less choices, but each wrong one screws you much harder).

FrankTrollman wrote:

Everybody is on the RNG (at least for combat) for all levels

Josh, you know that is a load of horse shit.

-Username17

I'll take that and raise you this.

Josh_Kablack wrote:The good from 4e:

• Ease of teaching any single class to new players (no more "Eric's new, he won't know how to play a wizard, so give him a fighter")
• No dead levels of advancement - everybody has at least one meaningful choice at each new level.

Point 1: The Fighter is not 'easy' to teach. At least not if you want Eric making a viable character. If you do it's harder than the Wizard, where you can just say 'Hey Eric, Evocation sucks as a spell school, do something else ok?'

Point 2: Everyone in 4.Fail is actually like a Monk. Which means you get all the pain of teaching them how to be viable, except more and also that you think you have options but you can't do much of anything useful or meaningful, and the only reason you don't automatically fail at life is because the enemies can't either.

Point 3: Meaningful choice in 4.Fail? Lololol. You pick the right race and the right stat and you throw everything you can at it. And it's rare that the number of things you have the 'option' to take exceeds the number of slots you have for taking, ergo your choices are made for you there as well. Not that there's much of a difference between the powers themselves in any case. Piddly shit damage + possible trivial effect.

Hmmm......

I think that I might have a really good solution for D&D 4e.

Use the 2e Monster HP totals.

A Red Dragon gets 9 to 23 HD total; or 40.5 to 103.5 hp.

That's.... not a ton. However, the 'piddling damage' means less when the max enemy HP is also lowered a large armount.