How much of the anti-4E sentiment is actually justified?

[LR]

actually a rogue has to pay a much, much heavier feat tax to be able to actually contribute damage to a lot of monster subtypes that become more common the further you progress and

Do you even know what a high-level Rogue looks like?

I find it doubly laughable that people are seriously arguing that a cloak is a monster ability.

If you kill Mordenkainen, does he drop his Faithful Hound?

Yeah, you pick up his spell book and copy the fucking spell.

Next?

His writeup says that he knows every PHB Wizard spell plus change. That's a lot better than his stupid artifact or quarterstaff.

[Psychic Robot]

That's like saying if Person A is broke and everyone else is rich, making everyone equally broke is really making everyone equally rich, because they're all on the same level.

He's talking in terms of relative power.

[LR]

That's like saying if Person A is broke and everyone else is rich, making everyone equally broke is really making everyone equally rich, because they're all on the same level.

He's talking in terms of relative power.

And the argument is that relative power doesn't matter. 4e claims to have the same power scale as 3e and it demonstrably does not.

[Plebian]

actually a rogue has to pay a much, much heavier feat tax to be able to actually contribute damage to a lot of monster subtypes that become more common the further you progress and

Do you even know what a high-level Rogue looks like?

well that depends, is it a player who just wants to play the game or is it a system mastery Rogue

because the first is a Rogue with a PrC or two that fits what flavor the player wants while the second is an arcane mix of PrCs and only the absolute minimum of rogue levels possible to qualify for the first PrC

[Jilocasin]

the second is an arcane mix of PrCs and only the absolute minimum of rogue levels possible to qualify for the first PrC

It probably looks more like Rogue 20. You just use your first 'special ability' to pick up perfect two-weapon fighting, grab a wand of grave and golemstrike, maybe vinestrike too if you want. Get a ring of greater blink, lots of flasks, a bunch of scrolls you want to cast, oh also a wand of wraithstrike, and you're good to go.

[violence in the media]

Furthermore, I don't see much practical utility in building pc's and monsters using the exact same rules...to me that's just tedium and pedantry. AD&D never did it that way, fewer complain about the lack of immersion in that version than in the current one.

Lolwut? This is just anecdotal evidence dimmed by the passage of decades, but my memories of Basic and 2E involved a fair bit of frustration towards rules that seemed arbitrary and nonsensical.

i.e. Why does the Thief get to "climb walls" but the fighter has to "mountaineer"? And what the fuck is the difference? Why does the Elf get to use a sword and cast spell? Why can't I learn to do that?

Don't get me wrong, every game has moments that break immersion, I just remember having more of them in D&D pre-3E. Especially beacuse in those days there wasn't always a clear explaination available of why things were the way they were.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Furthermore, I don't see much practical utility in building pc's and monsters using the exact same rules...to me that's just tedium and pedantry. AD&D never did it that way, fewer complain about the lack of immersion in that version than in the current one.

People don't complain about it as much because while it sucked, no better system had been made at the time.

4e was a step backwards, which is far less forgivable.

It was really fucking stupid that no one knew monsters' ability scores other than Intelligence, which meant that if a dragon ever tried to break down a door, no one had any idea how that was supposed to work.

I also find it more tedious to have to make up an Ogre, Gnoll, Orc, Goblin, Kobold, Drow, or Lizard Man race because the monster versions are made of arbitrarium.

And I'm aware that there's some splat that gave rules for them, but you get the idea.

Lolwut? This is just anecdotal evidence dimmed by the passage of decades, but my memories of Basic and 2E involved a fair bit of frustration towards rules that seemed arbitrary and nonsensical.

i.e. Why does the Thief get to "climb walls" but the fighter has to "mountaineer"? And what the fuck is the difference? Why does the Elf get to use a sword and cast spell? Why can't I learn to do that?

Don't get me wrong, every game has moments that break immersion, I just remember having more of them in D&D pre-3E. Especially beacuse in those days there wasn't always a clear explaination available of why things were the way they were.

Pretty much.

Three words: Racial Level Limits.

3 more: Race/Class restrictions.

Yet 3 more: Racial Ability minimums/maximums.

Most of the other problems that I can think of in earlier editions were just needlessly complex rules, like lack of unified ability score or XP charts, THAC0, etc. or really Gygaxian bullshit like "if you roll poorly, tough shit, while all statted NPCs have at least 4 16s or higher, and "death, no save."

[sabs]

What I always did for Mid level games, was that PCs would start to run into Monsters that had Class Levels.

Gnoll Fighters, Kobold Rogues. Yes, a Kobold isn't very dangerous, but a Kobold with 10 levels of Rogue, Assassin, Wizard, BlackGuard.. is frightening.
I like that about 3E that it's EASY to put together a Drow Hero.

[Fuchs]

Tangent: In the time of the Internet, with generators and collections, is there actually an urgent need for very easy monster creation rules anymore? I pilfered a few high-level opponents from wikis, and if I dig around I am sure I can get a collection that'll last me for years.

[hogarth]

Furthermore, I don't see much practical utility in building pc's and monsters using the exact same rules...to me that's just tedium and pedantry. AD&D never did it that way, fewer complain about the lack of immersion in that version than in the current one.

Tedium and pedantry...

Out of curiosity, I looked up some stats on the various Monster Manuals:
AD&D MM: 108 pages, "more than 350" monsters
3.5E MM: 320 pages, "over 200" monsters
4E MM: 288 pages, "more than 300" monsters

So as far as tedium and pedantry goes, 4E is an improvement on 3.5E, but it's not even close to AD&D.

[sabs]

If you look at the stats of a 3.5 Monster from MM. It has a full stat block, it has a HD level. It's /easy/ to extrapolate from there. To give class levels to Monsters and give them stat boosts based on those levels. It's easy to give them feats. You can use a base Goblin, and give him 3 levels of fighter.

You can take a Gnoll, with 3HD and give him 3 levels of Barbarian and be fairly confident hes' roughly equal to a 6th level character.

[tzor]

Actually, he's right. Thri-Kreen should be able to market their poison, and 3E rules don't cover it very well.
I'm not sure what point he thinks that supports though.

But this is a case where you don't have to. You could have it that Thri-Kreen poison decays over time, forcing the Thri-Kreen to constantly remake (through their glands) the poison over time. I don't think there are such poisons, but there could be.

[Plebian]

If you look at the stats of a 3.5 Monster from MM. It has a full stat block, it has a HD level. It's /easy/ to extrapolate from there. To give class levels to Monsters and give them stat boosts based on those levels. It's easy to give them feats. You can use a base Goblin, and give him 3 levels of fighter.

You can take a Gnoll, with 3HD and give him 3 levels of Barbarian and be fairly confident hes' roughly equal to a 6th level character.

that's a horrible example of 3.5's complexity. of course it's easy to slap three levels of one of the simplest classes in the game, but as soon as you start trying to do anything but core, non-caster, classes it becomes needlessly complex incredibly quickly. let's see, this mindflayer I want to be a unique encounter needs the prereqs, Archmage 3, oh let's add a template for flavor, oh wait now I need to recalculate skill levels and stats and powers, now what spells should he have that aren't overpowered for facing the party, now what feats should he have that aren't overpowered for facing the party, oh shit I just spent an hour and a half on a single monster because I was chargenning it like a PC only with even more options than PCs have because of templates

compare this to 4e where you choose a monster, or make your own, choose the level, choose the role, choose appropriately themed powers, and bam you're done in ten minutes with a creature that fits all your fluff needs and is much easier to balance against a party


but if the needless complexity of treating a monster like a PC is what you like, it's what you like. just please don't claim it's easy. also in before the smug overload of "maybe it's not easy for you" because yeah it's not easy for anyone who doesn't just ignore the rules and slap stuff together with guesswork, which is definitely easy

[RobbyPants]

Tedium and pedantry...

Out of curiosity, I looked up some stats on the various Monster Manuals:
AD&D MM: 108 pages, "more than 350" monsters
3.5E MM: 320 pages, "over 200" monsters
4E MM: 288 pages, "more than 300" monsters

So as far as tedium and pedantry goes, 4E is an improvement on 3.5E, but it's not even close to AD&D.

The 2E Monstrous Manual had 384 pages. I don't know the exact monster count, but they tended to devote one page per monster except for complicated monsters (such as a several page intro for dragons). Also, some monsters might be found with several per page (such as the beholder kin).

So, I'm not sure if 2E had more than 200 monsters or not, but I doubt it was anywhere near 350. So 2E was likely the biggest step back.

[tzor]

I'm going to make a point about the 1E AD&D MM, a lot of creatures mentioned weren't really "monsters." They had a bunch of dinosaurs in the MM that were more flavor than monster. You could easily put a number of these fluff creatures on a single page.

[Sashi]

compare this to 4e where you choose a monster, or make your own, choose the level, choose the role, choose appropriately themed powers, and bam you're done in ten minutes with a creature that fits all your fluff needs and is much easier to balance against a party

I'm not going to defend the 3E monster system, because it's a headache for all the reasons you just mentioned (plus the completely arbitrary stat mods, titanic natural armor bonuses, and humanoid opponents with enough equipment to be an actual challenge to the PC's snapping WBL over their knee).

But that doesn't make the 4E system better. 4E is a massive step backward. In 3E everything's complicated because you're pretending like the monsters are actually part of the world, and could conceivably be interacted with in ways other than beating them up for their XP. In 4E they're just XP piñatas that can literally only be interacted with in combat. There are stats for the king if you try to kill him, but if you try to lie to him you just get shunted into the skill challenge rules and the king doesn't even show up for the party.

but if the needless complexity of treating a monster like a PC is what you like, it's what you like. just please don't claim it's easy. also in before the smug overload of "maybe it's not easy for you" because yeah it's not easy for anyone who doesn't just ignore the rules and slap stuff together with guesswork, which is definitely easy

It's needlessly complex to treat monsters like PCs, with hit dice and BAB and artificially ballooned Wisdom scores so their will saves are appropriate without wearing a cloak of resistance. It's not needlessly complex to treat monsters like PC's in terms of having a strength score or skill modifiers. These are real things that the monsters should have in order to make it so the players have actual choice and agency other than what method they're going to use to kill them.

[Darth Rabbitt]

compare this to 4e where you choose a monster, or make your own, choose the level, choose the role, choose appropriately themed powers, and bam you're done in ten minutes with a creature that fits all your fluff needs and is much easier to balance against a party

But there are no rules for picking or making powers.

And again, in no way is it easier to balance something to something else that operates on a completely different system.

but if the needless complexity of treating a monster like a PC is what you like, it's what you like. just please don't claim it's easy. also in before the smug overload of "maybe it's not easy for you" because yeah it's not easy for anyone who doesn't just ignore the rules and slap stuff together with guesswork, which is definitely easy

And it's not smug of you to claim that anyone who has an easy time advancing monsters is ignoring rules?

[Plebian]

compare this to 4e where you choose a monster, or make your own, choose the level, choose the role, choose appropriately themed powers, and bam you're done in ten minutes with a creature that fits all your fluff needs and is much easier to balance against a party

But there are no rules for picking or making powers.

And again, in no way is it easier to balance something to something else that operates on a completely different system.

actually the Adventure Tools, at least the old one not sure if DDI fucked it over with Silverlight as well, very easily let you pick from a list of powers and I'm pretty sure it let you add custom elements

also your second sentence doesn't make any sense at all. it's not easier to balance something on a system where it's easier to balance everything because it's a different system?

And it's not smug of you to claim that anyone who has an easy time advancing monsters is ignoring rules?

nope, because it's pretty much not easy, in the sense of taking little time and being intuitive with regards to balance, for anyone. if you think it's easy to balance PrCs and feats and base classes and templates from dozens of handbooks you're probably on drugs or just trying to posture for e-cred

[Darth Rabbitt]

Well, perhaps DDI did do that, as I never used it.

But using an online generator disproves your own point, because you require tools to make monsters; the books themselves don't provide rules for it.

Having PCs and monsters be on different systems and then trying to balance them is apples and oranges.

And who the fuck says that I'm going to go dumpster dive through every fucking splatbook to make a monster?

Nice strawman.

[Plebian]

Well, perhaps DDI did do that, as I never used it.

But using an online generator disproves your own point, because you require tools to make monsters; the books themselves don't provide rules for it.

Having PCs and monsters be on different systems and then trying to balance them is apples and oranges.

And who the fuck says that I'm going to go dumpster dive through every fucking splatbook to make a monster?

Nice strawman.

actually I'm fairly sure the MM has a template for custom monsters and you're allowed to take any power from any other monster to suit you, it's just that the Adventure Tools, like the Character Builder, made it a lot easier in general because everything is much easier to arrange

also how is it apples and oranges? they're not on entirely different systems, it's just recognized that monsters using the exact same complex chargen rules as players is pointless because a player's lifespan is going to be measured in campaigns where your average monster is going to be measured in how fast the players kill it. this is why they've got a somewhat different system built entirely towards engaging players but it's still the exact same mechanics, just differently balanced powers that the players don't get exact copies of.


oh and you don't have to use every splatbook but if your players are charop builds you're going to have to unless you're a big fan of using DM fiat to go "hmmm, nope, that attack didn't actually hit. *roll* you take 28 damage" and be bullshitting the whole time

if they're not you can get away with much simpler builds, but for the sake of an argument put together a mid-level caster monster with a template and time yourself, if you really want a decent idea on how annoying it is. remember spell lists and spellcaster feats, but be careful you don't accidentally make his DCs so high that he can Finger of Death your non-Fortitude classes with a 30% chance of them surviving

[sabs]

Wait, you don't spend time while writing up your setting detailing the kind of things you expect to be in your world? You don't plan any of your encounters? Yes, it takes me probably about 3 hours to put together a set of packages for Class Leveled Monsters. OH NO. The Horror.

You're DMing.. you dont' know most of the spellcaster feats and spell lists you think you want? A Drow Wizard isn't that hard. You're building a BBEG, and high paid henchmen.. put some thought into it. And if you're building grunts, why are you worrying so much about it.

And putting levels on monsters is a great way to increase their saves without giving them stats the size of texas. I'm not saying 3E is perfect, but it's not really that hard. The monsters have stats, they have hit die, they have spell like powers. Adding levels of classes is relatively easy, and makes for interesting henchmen and bbeg.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Yes, which is about as useful as the creation system in the 3.x monster manual.

They're apples and oranges exactly because the game falls apart if you even give monsters a different weapon in some instances, and same with giving monster stuff to players.

And it's bullshit that you can't take magic poison bows from yuan-ti and what not.

Stop putting fucking words in my mouth; I never said that it was a bad thing to have monster creation be easy, just that they should use the same system as PCs.

I said that a few pages ago.

I also said that there are plenty of monsters that some players want to play, and are perfectly appropriate to play.

It's really fucking stupid to have to write up a lizard man race or something because 4e monsters are bloated sacks of hit points, XP, and arbitrarium that have no way of interacting with the world outside of combat and have powers that aren't supposed to be balanced with players.

And no, if my players beat a challenge that I make, then they beat it.

I'm not going to Rule 0 it into giving them a harder fight.

If my players consistently win challenges, and they have fun optimizing their characters and have an easy time with things, I can adjust later opponents to be more of a challenge or just let them fucking enjoy the game.

And high-level opponents use death effects; a really optimized character can get DCs in the 30s, and most players have counters for it at that level.

So I don't see it as a problem that the players might be inconvenienced by it, given that they can very easily pop out death wards and true resurrections if they really want.

And I made a mid-level caster monster for a campaign I'm going to run, and it was both easy and fun.

[Shazbot79]

I find it doubly laughable that people are seriously arguing that a cloak is a monster ability.

If you kill Mordenkainen, does he drop his Faithful Hound?

Yeah, you pick up his spell book and copy the fucking spell.

Next?

Touche'.

What I mean, however, is that Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound isn't an actual hound, like my childhood dog Bella was a hound...it is a flavorful name for a magical effect.

In the same vein, perhaps the Tiefling "cloak" abilities are the name of a specific effect rather than an item.

In prior editions, if you kill a spellcaster you could copy spells from their grimoire because the assumption is that magic is a rigidly formulaic thing. The assumption in 4E is that magical effects and other powers (aside from rituals) are personalized tricks individual to the power's wielder, and as such can't be looted from the corpses.

Personally, I would be fine with the idea of players learning powers that antagonists use in place of their class powers, depending on the specifics of the situation. Unfortunately, players' reliance on the character builder makes such practices prohibitive.

[Shazbot79]

i.e. Why does the Thief get to "climb walls" but the fighter has to "mountaineer"? And what the fuck is the difference? Why does the Elf get to use a sword and cast spell? Why can't I learn to do that?

Don't get me wrong, every game has moments that break immersion, I just remember having more of them in D&D pre-3E. Especially beacuse in those days there wasn't always a clear explaination available of why things were the way they were.

All of those seemingly arbitrary decisions in AD&D were mad for the sake of game balance. I'm not saying they succeeded, far from it. But back in those days, the Thief was supposed to be the one climbing walls, because that sort of thing was the Thief's job and the notion of anyone else ever attempting it was merely an afterthought, because at the time a unified skill system never occurred to the writers. Just like the notion of giving humans their own extra shit never occurred to the AD&D designers, so instead they stuck level limits and class restrictions on demi-humans to give everyone a reason to play humans.

But that doesn't make the 4E system better. 4E is a massive step backward. In 3E everything's complicated because you're pretending like the monsters are actually part of the world, and could conceivably be interacted with in ways other than beating them up for their XP. In 4E they're just XP piñatas that can literally only be interacted with in combat. There are stats for the king if you try to kill him, but if you try to lie to him you just get shunted into the skill challenge rules and the king doesn't even show up for the party.

You're correct in that 4E monsters are basically there to be killed. The designers said so in the various 4E previews. It doesn't mean that interaction with them absolutely can't happen...it merely means that my methods for adjudicating such things wouldn't be very satisfying to you personally as a player. That's fine...it's not as though you're wrong for wanting to have this information.

However, not everyone cares about that level of detail in the rules. Those that do, aren't going to play in a group that won't touch anything but 4E (a lament of mine) and from my perspective, the prospect of having to rule these things based on judgment and by what meager guidelines the game has to offer is far preferable to one where I have to worry about assigning skill points, magic gear and feats to adversaries and NPC's that I create.

It's needlessly complex to treat monsters like PCs, with hit dice and BAB and artificially ballooned Wisdom scores so their will saves are appropriate without wearing a cloak of resistance. It's not needlessly complex to treat monsters like PC's in terms of having a strength score or skill modifiers. These are real things that the monsters should have in order to make it so the players have actual choice and agency other than what method they're going to use to kill them.

This comes down to a difference in gaming philosophies. I mentioned AD&D before, because for the most part these things were handled by the DM pulling rulings out of his/her ass. This method has it's problems, which have been well documented, but in the best case scenario you would have a fair and consistent DM, and players felt like their choices mattered, even without specific rules to govern it.

Anyway, I'm just spitting in the wind here. You win this argument. Rules are objective and DM fiat is not. The fact that I pull rulings out of my ass is an indictment of the system, and my ability to do so is not a logical defense thereof.

However, I will say that I like having players take agency in the games that I run. I like them using their ingenuity to solve problems. I try to encourage and foster this as much as possible, so that each campaign feels like a shared endeavor, rather than me narrating them through my kick-ass story for no other reason than wanting an audience. Despite 3rd edition having a hard-coded framework for accomplishing these things, I personally find doing so in 4E much more fulfilling.

[shadzar]

All of those seemingly arbitrary decisions in AD&D were mad for the sake of game balance. I'm not saying they succeeded, far from it. But back in those days, the Thief was supposed to be the one climbing walls, because that sort of thing was the Thief's job and the notion of anyone else ever attempting it was merely an afterthought, because at the time a unified skill system never occurred to the writers. Just like the notion of giving humans their own extra shit never occurred to the AD&D designers, so instead they stuck level limits and class restrictions on demi-humans to give everyone a reason to play humans.

Wow, the shit gets deep as people assign their own beliefs rather than facts to things....

Starting out, humans weren't supposed to have special racial features, as they were the baseline of the human-centric world.

It isn't it never occurred to the designers, but the design concept that was being striven for.

Likewise having one person be the thief rather than every PC just being a bandit, was also a part of the design concept.

D&D moved away form the everyone picks form the same things type of games (wargames), to make each piece individual and different. The thief was not the fighter was not the cleric was not the wizard.

Giving other people the ability to climb wasn't an after thought, but the fact the theme would have had the thief doing it more often and needed it most often.

PC Parties were made up of the classic groups where in a person for every task was present. You didn't adventure and hope to have a tale to tell to people without bringing along a quire to record the adventure. Gandalf and the dwarves didnt burgle, so they sought out one to do so for them.

This was the design concept, not one of which every character could do every possible task within the game, but a group of specialists gathered together to perform their tasks for a common goal.

It was, to some people's disgust, more that the thief was the only one that should be doing it, because the other classes see it as beneath them, and that is why they brought a thief with them to climb the walls, rather than an afterthought.