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

[Username17]

In terms of overall uselessness, though, I would argue that the 4e warlock pulls its weight better throughout the whole of the game better than the 3e fighter. The 3e fighter certainly stands for a few levels before becoming obsolete, but the 4e warlock can contribute more meaningfully at level 30 than the 3e fighter can at level 20.

That's a pointless double standard though. No one plays 3e or 4e at the maximum level. In fact, I wouldn't play 4e past 3rd level, because it is fucking boring. If I was going to play 3e until 3rd level, Fighter would be a fine choice.

-Username17

[MGuy]

Ok this has gone on long enough and will continue to go on. Bottom line is 4e is not > 3E. In fact it fails in a lot of the same, and more places than 3E has failed. THe very fact that no 4E defender can actually find enough Pros with the game that don't end up falling (In their opinion) at best on the same level as 3E shows that the edition as a whole was a failure to move ahead.

The fact that the designers of the system wasted everyone's time and SHITTED on previous editions means that YES it deserves to be hated. I'm SURE that this stupid conversation will continue because this point has already been made but can we please get off this subject?

oh man how did I miss this jewel of a post, this right here emphasizes the attitude I've found everywhere in TGD; you make wild-ass claims without any support besides your opinions and then present them as facts but at the same time claim that our opinions support yours

and then you go and say the game shitted on previous editions and it deserves to be hated which is hilarious because idiots said it when 3E was released, when 3.5 was released, and I'm betting it was said when AD&D was released. also you saying that any tabletop deserves to be hated really does imply a very sad amount of devotion to a game.

You have been given tons of proof, numbers, even the 4E preview video. You just refuse to accept any of it. Even your OWN ARGUMENTS have come down to "But3E did that too!". The fact that 4E was released and proposed to be more advanced than 3E yet had to be errata'd all to hell and back and not just bits and pieces, whole structural parts of the game had to be refitted if what I'm reading is accurate. But you know what I toss my hands up. There's no use in me saying anything because its all already been said but you refuse to accept anything.

[MGuy]

Now, imagine how the game went. And imagine how friends reacted when I explained to them about what happened.

Hearing the details would be a better use of my time than folks arguing in circles with Plebian. I can imagine, but let's see how accurate they were?

Right, so I played a Dragonborn paladin. Dragonborn were an official race and I said why not? So I wanted to see what being a defender was like. It sucked, hard. And I realized it in the first combat against kobolds. We were ambushed (as small creatures tend to do) and attacked by the little things. Some were at range on top of a house and there were some melee things. I tried marking and everything I marked was killed by the party warden before my mark DID anything. So I marked the only tough melee guy. That mark got overturned by the Ranger's mark. Something was said abut one mark at a time. I did not do as much damage as ANYONE there. I couldn't REACH the ones that were pegging us at a distance so all in all I was useless the entire first fight.

This would go on (skipping over the discovery that I couldn't use my powers out of combat) we went on into a skill challnge. I had Know Relig, and Intimidate (Dragonborn get it so I went with it for racial reasons) automatically failed the challenge cause on my turn I decided to roll up some intimidate which means that we auto failed the social challenge. So two fights later I've thrown caution to the wind because up to this point nothing I did in or out of combat really even mattered. The warden healed me anytime I was hurt just by having his thing in range and it always was cause I just attacked what it attacked.

So I had 2 skills that did nothing. I hadn't set up my stats right because I didn't make my character (not knowing the rules and all), couldn't do shit in or out of combat because in combat my daily only did 3 [W] + X damage and gave +5 AC to one character for 1 turn (Whoopie!). Couldn't do anything useful in skill challenges because Intimidate applies to so few situations and I had to bend over backwards o shoehorn Know religion in somewhere, couldn't use my powers out of combat for anything (even basic shit like lighting my god damn campfire). So yes. My first experience with the game was awful. I would have been BETTER off playing a paladin in 3E at first level.

Sure I probably could have been a strength paladin (though if I remember the powers in the opening levels right probably not) but if your defense for 4E is "there aren't any trap options" you're dead wrong cause I faceplanted right into one without even trying.

[Judging__Eagle]

Plebian, can you explain how the Skill Challenges system works in 4e, and why it succeeds or fails?

Seriously, if you can't even begin to do that, then you have no place ever talking about whether 4e is fail in a book or not.

[Swordslinger]

Swordslinger - what systems, then, aren't fail?

4E is probably the best I've seen in terms of running a system out of the box. Though that's not to say 4E is by any means perfect. 4E has its own flaws too and I can see people calling it fail as well.

But that's the entire point about my argument. Holding the anti-4E position like most people here do is stupid, because 3E isn't any better, it's just more house ruled. All the impassioned hate for it is needless. It's not like 3E was any better.

[tussock]

4E is probably the best I've seen in terms of running a system out of the box.

If you only do the things 4e allows you to do, all the other editions are just as stable and easy to use, only the characters still have more agency. Really, port to the "encounter" (no, you can't do anything else), kill it with your weakest attacks (ignoring its attacks), pretend the fight never happened except for useful spells (if something mattered, you lose it for the day), and repeat until bored. Sure, you have to fail 3 rolls to miss a "skill challenge" when it used to be 1 roll, but so what?

That's the 4e design doc right there. If you just do that with 3e, AD&D, Basic, whatever, the game is consistent and fun enough if you don't want to have any sense of challenge or achievement, or exploration, discovery, messing with the world, getting off the rails, all that sort of thing.

As a last-minute thought they added healing surges to make you think it's a D&D game, so the fights do /something/, but the basic plan was that what you did five minutes ago should not matter, and players should not be able to affect the plot. Three fights and call it a night, take your new sword and be happy.

[Vnonymous]

I think this quote, from the people who did that forum invasion earlier, really sums up what happens in the mind of a 4e fan.

The problem at it's most basic - and one of the things that lead to caster superiority - is that while 3e is the only D&D edition to mandate NPCs and PCs working the same, up until 4e all spells were the same. Presumably this was so they could just print one fat book of spells and say various monsters had their various spells without having to reprint each spell over and over (4e dodges this by giving monsters, gasp, different abilities). The problem is that design philosophy mandated that spells all be universal - magic existed as a mechanic rather then as a ritual, so all wizards were capable of drawing on arcane spells. Only thing was, these spells were designed for NPCs, not PCs. Wish isn't a spell, it's a plot device. The same goes for most scrying abilities - they aren't magic spells you bust out on whim, they're meant to be plot powers. So you have all these really powerful spells meant for NPCs, but because they're all "arcane" spells, PC wizards could theoretically learn them too.

In earlier editions the "balance" in this was that DMs were in charge of what spells wizards got, with the ideal that a "good" DM wouldn't give wizards the "NPC" spells. Of course, there was no such thing as an "NPC" spell since they were all arcane spells, and it was inevitably abolished in 3e where wizards could just buy whatever scrolls they wanted.

The hang up a lot of (really lovely) DMs has is that 4e doesn't have "plot" spells as previous editions did. Instead, the DM is meant to have the NPCs actually use magic as ritual and narrative device rather then pure mechanics. The problem is, these DMs are terrible and don't grasp the idea of narrative devices existing outside of the mechanics. They are, ultimately, the "rollplayers" they inevitably rant against.

It's the same reason why they need assassins to have stats even if they never use them - they don't get narrative devices existing outside of hard mechanics.

So when people whinge about how the setting can't be done in 4e, it's because their undeveloped understanding of narrative drive doesn't let them disconnect "powerful plot-driving power" from "magical spell."

. Scrying isn't a useful tool that makes the game more fun for both players and dms, its' actually an NPC only tool that got thrown on the player's side by mistake. Players are just meant to follow along with the story and not change anything until the dm lets them! Otherwise they might disrupt the "narrative" that he worked so hard to create(and in all probability fill with horrible cliches and DMPCs).

[Bobikus]

If you can only play along with the DMs preset narrative though, why not just play a CRPG? A lot of what kept tabletop rpgs different after computer RPGs were created was the potential for actual player agency through *gasp* PC being able to use spells that *gasp* could function as actual plot devices. If I want everything pushing the story to be in the hands of NPCs, I'll just go play Oblivion or Dragon Age etc.

[Kaelik]

Nor should you be claiming Starcraft is balanced because you balanced it in your own personal custom maps/mods that nobody but you and your friends play. What your house rules did to the game isn't even something I care about, because with sufficient house ruling, you can make any game awesome or sucky.

It's like you are genuinely not reading what I am saying.

Starcraft has 3 balanced races. If they released an expansion "Tide of the Hippos" which introduced the hippo race, which is terrible, and has workers who cost 250 minerals and gather resources slower, would the game suddenly be a piece of crap? Or would it be exactly the same game, except with some code that no one ever uses.

Pretending for a moment that all 4e classes are good, and that Warlock and Avenger and Paladin are not balls, if 4e comes out with a book tomorrow called "Hippo warriors" that adds three new hippo classes, all of which don't get powers, and can only use basic attacks, and have 1/2 the HP of a Wizard... Would 4e suddenly turn into a pile of trash? Or would it be exactly the same game, but no one would ever use the Hippo Warrior book?

I'm going by the 3.5 official product that's out now. This is with lots of rules changes, additions, expansions, patches and what have you. The game is still god awful imbalanced.

So am I, which is why I keep saying "3e without houserules, is a really good game, which is interesting, and fun, as long as you don't play a shitty class." (Unlike 4e, which is always boring.)

Yes, the game is "imbalanced" in that there are 40 good classes, and 60 crappy ones. But if you just play the 40 good classes, then it doesn't matter if the crappy ones exist or not.

[Josh_Kablack]

My girlfriend made the mistake of trying to play a warlock once, and boy did that turn out awful.

Well, it's not the edition's fault that your girlfriend is lousy at picking out classes - she's managed to do that in Tome too

[sabs]

You do realize that Warlock was the cross over class?
It's the class they used to test the ideas of "at will, once a day, once an encounter" style power and balance.

And it's universally considered a LOUSY class.
Warlock was the first taste of how fucked up 4E was going to be.

[Aharon]

@Sabs
huh? But most of the things a Warlock gets are at-will, IIRC. Plus, it's from 2004. I thought they only began the work on 4e in 2005, two years before it came out?

[hogarth]

@Sabs
huh? But most of the things a Warlock gets are at-will, IIRC.

Yes, but some of the at-will stuff lasts for an entire encounter and some of it lasts for a single round.

Plus, it's from 2004. I thought they only began the work on 4e in 2005, two years before it came out?

They were still testing out the ideas even if the term "4E" wasn't in their minds at the time.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I remember leaving a message board some years back. I said I didn't like 4e. I was asked why, and I said that I found it boring, that I didn't feel the abilities did anything, and that to me it felt too much like a card game.

Even though I was polite and phrased entirely in "I" words, a moderator came in and flipped the fuck out on me, said I was making personal attacks, then went on a long tirade about what a terrible person I am.

[Plebian]

Right, so I played a Dragonborn paladin. Dragonborn were an official race and I said why not? So I wanted to see what being a defender was like. It sucked, hard. And I realized it in the first combat against kobolds. We were ambushed (as small creatures tend to do) and attacked by the little things. Some were at range on top of a house and there were some melee things. I tried marking and everything I marked was killed by the party warden before my mark DID anything. So I marked the only tough melee guy. That mark got overturned by the Ranger's mark. Something was said abut one mark at a time. I did not do as much damage as ANYONE there. I couldn't REACH the ones that were pegging us at a distance so all in all I was useless the entire first fight.

your DM was stupid and your Ranger never read his Quarry rules; it specifically states that it doesn't supersede a mark. also a Warden is another defender, I'm guessing it was a Shaman maybe? I dunno.

This would go on (skipping over the discovery that I couldn't use my powers out of combat) we went on into a skill challnge. I had Know Relig, and Intimidate (Dragonborn get it so I went with it for racial reasons) automatically failed the challenge cause on my turn I decided to roll up some intimidate which means that we auto failed the social challenge. So two fights later I've thrown caution to the wind because up to this point nothing I did in or out of combat really even mattered. The warden healed me anytime I was hurt just by having his thing in range and it always was cause I just attacked what it attacked.

"guys I tried to threaten someone, failed, and there were consequences, how dare this happen"

also yeah that was probably a shaman, they're leaders

So I had 2 skills that did nothing. I hadn't set up my stats right because I didn't make my character (not knowing the rules and all), couldn't do shit in or out of combat because in combat my daily only did 3 [W] + X damage and gave +5 AC to one character for 1 turn (Whoopie!). Couldn't do anything useful in skill challenges because Intimidate applies to so few situations and I had to bend over backwards o shoehorn Know religion in somewhere, couldn't use my powers out of combat for anything (even basic shit like lighting my god damn campfire). So yes. My first experience with the game was awful. I would have been BETTER off playing a paladin in 3E at first level.

haha "waaahhh my daily is only triple weapon damage" is a pretty hilarious bitch, also are you really the guy that tried to light a campfire with radiant energy because wooooooow that's some really stupid shit right there. I mean there's not even any indication that radiant energy causes heat, would you try to light a campfire with something tagged psychic or necrotic? why wouldn't you just, you know, use a tinderbox instead of asking a god to do something so petty as to light a fire? why wouldn't you read the description of Intimidate and Knowledge: Religion?

I mean I know all of the answers are that you came into it wanting to hate 4e and contrived every reason you could to validate your silly hatred for a game, but damn man it wasn't even in a clever manner you just come across as an idiot who didn't bother to read the system or understand the most basic rules before trying to play and condemning it for your own failings

Sure I probably could have been a strength paladin (though if I remember the powers in the opening levels right probably not) but if your defense for 4E is "there aren't any trap options" you're dead wrong cause I faceplanted right into one without even trying.

no, you tried pretty damn hard to faceplant into that one

Plebian, can you explain how the Skill Challenges system works in 4e, and why it succeeds or fails?

Seriously, if you can't even begin to do that, then you have no place ever talking about whether 4e is fail in a book or not.

what? I've specifically stated that the stock rules for skill challenges are stupid. as it is the pass/fail ratio is off and I find myself sitting out of them at times because I don't have appropriate skills and can't think of a way to introduce the skills I do have.

but keep being an idiot trying to ask clever leading questions, I'm sure some day it will work

I remember leaving a message board some years back. I said I didn't like 4e. I was asked why, and I said that I found it boring, that I didn't feel the abilities did anything, and that to me it felt too much like a card game.

Even though I was polite and phrased entirely in "I" words, a moderator came in and flipped the fuck out on me, said I was making personal attacks, then went on a long tirade about what a terrible person I am.

so obviously one person flipping out on you years ago means that it's perfectly okay for everyone on this board to flip the fuck out, make up pejoratives, make up inaccurate 'failings' of 4e, and generally act like immature tools because of their dislike for a game

[Fuchs]

I remember leaving a message board some years back. I said I didn't like 4e. I was asked why, and I said that I found it boring, that I didn't feel the abilities did anything, and that to me it felt too much like a card game.

Even though I was polite and phrased entirely in "I" words, a moderator came in and flipped the fuck out on me, said I was making personal attacks, then went on a long tirade about what a terrible person I am.

Was that EN World? They jumped on the 4E train pretty hard, and made people who prefered 3E rather unwelcome.

[Doom]

Though that's not to say 4E is by any means perfect. 4E has its own flaws too and I can see people calling it fail as well.

But that's the entire point about my argument. Holding the anti-4E position like most people here do is stupid, because 3E isn't any better, it's just more house ruled. All the impassioned hate for it is needless. It's not like 3E was any better.

Exactly!

Of course, knowing that 3e is just as good in your estimation, why exactly should people pay hundreds of bucks for dozens of books for a pseudo-D&D game that the best the fans of it can come up with is, "it isn't any better than what you already have"?

That's the key you're missing. Yes, 3e has flaws, and you can argue those flaws are as bad sometimes as 4e. But doing so means you're basically the games are both bad, just with 4e you get to pay a ton of money for a ton of bad books. Doesn't that tip the scale a little bit?

[Plebian]

Exactly!

Of course, knowing that 3e is just as good in your estimation, why exactly should people pay hundreds of bucks for dozens of books for a pseudo-D&D game that the best the fans of it can come up with is, "it isn't any better than what you already have"?

That's the key you're missing. Yes, 3e has flaws, and you can argue those flaws are as bad sometimes as 4e. But doing so means you're basically the games are both bad, just with 4e you get to pay a ton of money for a ton of bad books. Doesn't that tip the scale a little bit?

yeah and in 3e you get to pay even more money for even more bad books, so uh the argument goes both ways. also haha at pseudo-D&D. I swear the claims that new-D&D-isn't-D&D were hilarious at the end of AD&D and they will never stop being hilarious. D&D is not any one thing, it's a label for a system that encompasses everything from flying magical spaceships through space to gothic horror to high fantasy to gritty fantasy to whatever the particular group in question wants it to be.

though I am somewhat relieved that you're at least starting to realize it's a matter of personal preference, maybe TGD will start to move away from trying to pass off their subjective preferences as objective slams of a game.

[hogarth]

But that's the entire point about my argument. Holding the anti-4E position like most people here do is stupid, because 3E isn't any better, it's just more house ruled. All the impassioned hate for it is needless. It's not like 3E was any better.

I don't know what to tell you; I think 3E is better. I don't have anything personal against 4E, but I think it's boring.

I'm playing a level 4 sorcerer in a 4E play-by-email game, and 90% of the time I just repeat the magic words "I fire an Acid Orb at him". And I've played a level 4 sorcerer in 3E and I just feel there are more options (e.g. use a 2nd level spell, use one of two 1st level spells, or save my mojo for later) and the options are more interesting (e.g. spells like Invisibility or Levitate instead of "2d8+7 and shift target one square").

[Count Arioch the 28th]

so obviously one person flipping out on you years ago means that it's perfectly okay for everyone on this board to flip the fuck out, make up pejoratives, make up inaccurate 'failings' of 4e, and generally act like immature tools because of their dislike for a game

So me not liking the same game you do means you can lay the blame of any real or imagined slight on 4e from the posters here squarely on my shoulders?

None of the people here are my minions. Nor would I care to have anyone here as my minions, they tend to be a pissy bunch here. I want positive people with a can-do attitude as my minions. The people here are the kind of people that would use public masturbation as a way to demonstrate flaws with my chain of command.

[MGuy]

Great Plebian as you've done with everyone else's post you just trivialized and dismissed my complaint. Well I'm not gonna bother any more either the only thing I have a big problem with what you siad is you think its right for one intimidate check, regardless of how successful it is, to lead to automatic failure. Instead of just acknowledging the fact, and it IS a fact, that Skill Challenges, especially the first version that I played with suck you instead turn it into my fault. I fully expect intimidate to fundamentally change how things go but what shouldn't happen is AUTO-FAILURE no matter what.

[Josh_Kablack]

The problem with your argument ROLL 1d6,

1. Lago
2. Plebian
3. Psychic Robot
4. Frank
5. Tzor
6. Someone Else (see subchart)

Is that ROLL 1d6

1. "You ignored my point entirely, I still want an answer"
2. "It's hardly unique to 3e/4e, that's a problem in your favorite edition too"
3. "The sales figures I made up are better."
4. "Nothing you say is gonna make me like playing your boring and unbalanced edition"
5. "You forgot what happened in older editions, it used to work like blah blah blah, and by gum we liked it, uphill both ways in the snow whippersnappers and yer videyah games....
6. "Is that I am going to use a small tangent to respond to it with unrelated nonsense, as follows....."

So unless ROLL 1d6

1. "You address that issue soon"
2. "You start making some sense"
3. "You find a real source for your data"
4. "You stop asking for a game to meet contradictory goals"
5. "You stop making such basic grammar mistakes"
6. "Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane"

I am going to ROLL 1d6

1. Repeat my argument with slightly different words until the end of time.
2. Use a bunch of profanity to no real effect
3. Blame you for prior failings within my gaming group
4. Accuse you of being Charlie Sheen
5. Keep right on responding to your posts without actually comprehending them.
6. Put you on ignore

[Soda]

haha "waaahhh my daily is only triple weapon damage" is a pretty hilarious bitch

Hah, Plebian is making points against himself now. Yes, in 4e your best power is only MOAR DAMAGE. What a boring game.

[mean_liar]

Y'all gettin' trolled. You're basically having an argument with a slightly more coherent shadzar.

Worth repeating.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Y'all gettin' trolled. You're basically having an argument with a slightly more coherent shadzar.

Worth repeating.

You're preaching to the converted here.