[4e] Those lying liars.

[Lance Twillman]

The idea that some builds should be totally ineffective in certain fights is a BAD one.

Disagree. It's only a BAD idea if your system is so complicated that it takes two 4-hour sessions to play out an average encounter. If you can squeeze 8 encounters into 4 hours, then the wizard isn't going to get pissed off that his Fireball spell doesn't work against the Fire Giant in Encounter 5.

Is that why 4E is so bad? Because the designers wanted every single character to contribute exactly equally to every single encounter?

[CapnTthePirateG]

The idea that some builds should be totally ineffective in certain fights is a BAD one.

Disagree. It's only a BAD idea if your system is so complicated that it takes two 4-hour sessions to play out an average encounter. If you can squeeze 8 encounters into 4 hours, then the wizard isn't going to get pissed off that his Fireball spell doesn't work against the Fire Giant in Encounter 5.

Is that why 4E is so bad? Because the designers wanted every single character to contribute exactly equally to every single encounter?

Go look at your statement about long-ass encounter times. Then go play 4e.

EDIT: Also, this: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=101912

[Username17]

Is that why 4E is so bad? Because the designers wanted every single character to contribute exactly equally to every single encounter?

No. 4e designers made a really big deal about how they were making the most balanced version of D&D ever. And 4e fans frequently take it as given that they were successful in doing that, and that by extension the 4e detractors must "hate balance" or something. The reality is that different character types are radically different in power, and there are high level characters who are literally unkillable.

4e delivered on its promise to get everyone playing the same game only by making the game so easy that you didn't actually have to optimize or even make good tactical decisions in order to win the combat minigame. Team Monster in 4e takes a long time to chop up, but the ultimate results are not really in doubt. There are people out there who suggest using double or even quadruple the number of monsters for a "standard" encounter, and the battles still aren't very threatening, just longer.

Balance makes a game more fun for the most part. Being structurally inferior because you liked the flavor of one kind of hero instead of another is extremely frustrating. 4e's failings as a game have almost nothing to do with its balance points. It is a bad game because it divides everything into challenge minigames, and the "Combat Challenge" minigame is extremely fiddly and repetitive and the "Skill Challenge" minigame is completely nonfunctional. Like: they've seriously overhauled the damn thing more than two dozen times and it still doesn't work even a little bit for anything.

That's the issue. An RPG is a series of minigames that add up to an overall narrative experience. You can have shitty minigames in there and still have a good game (Shadowrun's Matrix minigame comes to mind), but if all your minigames are crap there's no reason to play the game instead of just playing Magic Teaparty Storytime.

-Username17

[hogarth]

Is that why 4E is so bad? Because the designers wanted every single character to contribute exactly equally to every single encounter?

No. 4E is so bad because combat is boring. "I fire my at-will power for the 98th time today. Yawn."

[Windjammer]

4e delivered on its promise to get everyone playing the same game only by making the game so easy that you didn't actually have to optimize or even make good tactical decisions in order to win the combat minigame. Team Monster in 4e takes a long time to chop up, but the ultimate results are not really in doubt. There are people out there who suggest using double or even quadruple the number of monsters for a "standard" encounter, and the battles still aren't very threatening, just longer.

Quite. The 4E Player's Strategy Guide actually gives a quick run down on the expected numbers (across all levels), and the idea is that in 4E whichever level you play, PCs should hit on an 8 or more whereas monsters should hit on rolling 10 or more. That's the numbers they were shooting for, but the implementation is so bad that you really got to put in a huge effort to secure the numbers stay in that area (expertise feats and their kin). Nevermind that it's not even certain that the +8/+10 to-hit discrepancy makes for an interesting set up (let alone, for an interesting set up if you retain it throughout levels 1 to 30).

I'm currently in a 4E game where the DM ignores the Monster Manual. He simply builds PCs for our antagonists, which are on the same level as we are (and sometimes above - e.g., a guard captain at level +2 accompanied by five soldiers at level -2 or whatever).* And these fights work very well for us, are challenging, and - for reasons I can't fathom - don't go on for too much, because we either have to run screaming or the opposition surrenders (owing to our lvl 3 bard with +21 Intimidate).

And I think that's perhaps a good way to go. Instead of thinking of 4E as a game where the two opposing sides - PCs and monsters - use different mechanics from two different books (PHB/MM), just use one half of that setup. Make the game PC vs PC, or MM vs MM. Of course the only reason why that's a preferred way to go is that 4E failed to give us a PHB and MM which work with each other.

*That's a typical example in that our DM will only build two different PCs, and then have one PC be the opposing leader and use the other PC build to represent the remaining 5+ antagonists. No way you gonna run with the 4E-ism of 5 monsters with a different stat block each in one encounter.

[Username17]

I'm currently in a 4E game where the DM ignores the Monster Manual. He simply builds PCs for our antagonists, which are on the same level as we are (and sometimes above - e.g., a guard captain at level +2 accompanied by five soldiers at level -2 or whatever).* And these fights work very well for us, are challenging, and - for reasons I can't fathom - don't go on for too much, because we either have to run screaming or the opposition surrenders (owing to our lvl 3 bard with +21 Intimidate).

And I think that's perhaps a good way to go. Instead of thinking of 4E as a game where the two opposing sides - PCs and monsters - use different mechanics from two different books (PHB/MM), just use one half of that setup. Make the game PC vs PC, or MM vs MM. Of course the only reason why that's a preferred way to go is that 4E failed to give us a PHB and MM which work with each other.

Team Player has a much higher damage to hit point ratio. It's seriously not even close. PvP should lead to shortish fights because the PC damage output is really quite close to the PC hit point totals. Monstr vs. Monster, on the other hand, would be painful beyond belief. A lot of the high level monsters can't even bloody themselves in forty rounds of combat.

The 4e Monster Manual is one of the worst documents ever made for the D&D franchise. And I am including the gnome workshop one.

-Username17

[sabs]

why have levels, if you're just doing a flat 8 vs 10 across all levels? If you're to hit chance never changes for level appropriate, what the hell is the point. Why bother leveling?

[Fuchs]

The kind of people who play 4E are the same as the WoW corwd, and they like leveling for leveling's sake, even if the game never changes, and the monster just get reskinned.

[Swordslinger]

The 4e Monster Manual is one of the worst documents ever made for the D&D franchise. And I am including the gnome workshop one.

I don't know if I'd go that far, but the original 4E MM is terrible. Most of the monsters in 4E pre-essentials are not runnable out of the box, save at very low levels. Most of the stuff past 9th level in the original 4E MM is just a boring grind to kill. Brute monsters especially are a total joke.

The monster vault makes monsters a lot more dangerous though and fixes a lot of the problems. Monsters still have more HP than PCs, but that's understandable because PCs heal and monsters don't, so the damage soaked by each side ends up being pretty comparable.

[CapnTthePirateG]

The 4e Monster Manual is one of the worst documents ever made for the D&D franchise. And I am including the gnome workshop one.

I don't know if I'd go that far, but the original 4E MM is terrible. Most of the monsters in 4E pre-essentials are not runnable out of the box, save at very low levels. Most of the stuff past 9th level in the original 4E MM is just a boring grind to kill. Brute monsters especially are a total joke.

The monster vault makes monsters a lot more dangerous though and fixes a lot of the problems. Monsters still have more HP than PCs, but that's understandable because PCs heal and monsters don't, so the damage soaked by each side ends up being pretty comparable.

So when is WoTC going to give me back my $34.95?

[Doom]

That's an excellent idea...about the only way I'd put 'more' into 4e/Essentials/whatever it is now is if I either got stuff for free (still do, but not consistently enough to run a campaign) or if they'd let me return my MM for a book that can be close to used as is.

[MadScientistWorking]

Much[/i] higher damage to hit point ratio. It's seriously not even close. PvP should lead to shortish fights because the PC damage output is really quite close to the PC hit point totals.

-Username17

Actually, PvP would either be extremely short or it would be the most mind numbingly long fight on the face of the earth. Because for a game that supposedly lacks and tactics beyond hitting you can pretty much effectively render a lot of classes pretty useless if you aren't careful in selecting powers. Its essentially one of the things they warn you about when creating monsters and NPCs that use player abilities in that you can horribly unbalance monsters in the DMs favor.

And finally there's the basic problem that under this system, Humans might as well never be psionic characters because they'll just end up with an unaugmentable, non-scaling, level 1 At Will power that pretty not doesn't exist after heroic tier.

Humans get one of the best encounter abilities in all of 4E outside of maybe half-elf. Of course you need to make a tactical decision in whether or not to choose it but its certainly a far better choice than an additional at-will in certain cases. Certainly am contemplating it getting it for my character.

WUT.

Source? I mean, that's an amazingly stupid thing to do. Really?

I'll have to check but I'm pretty sure the Battlemind and Monk never actually use psychic attacks. The Battlemind uses it for mark enforcement but other than its primarily all melee based.

So, do you play with errata? Because WotC' own Creative Director doesn't.

Yeah that really is a dumb rational because its obvious that he plays fast and loose even with the rules that have no errata.