4E Excerpt: Paragon Paths

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Yes. Because almost nothing has DR in 4e. In fact it seems to be gone entirely, and a few things get Resist (weapons): 5 or something similar.

Whats notable about the paths is the action point usage. They seem to have trouble balancing those. The paths that get +4 to all attacks when they use one are really good- it means you can spam at least 2 encounter or daily powers with a much greater chance to hit. The kensai's reroll is also good, for much the same reason. The ranger paths 3 space teleport? A little weak in comparison.

And despite the fact that I like the 4e warlock, they really feel like Sailor Moon-esque magical girls.

I actually looked at the article in more detail, and it looks like the fighter's got nothing on clerics and even paladins when it comes to paragon features. The cleric warpriest at 11th level can put the smackdown on somebody every couple of encounters if he's got any decent attack powers (which you'd think a martial priest would). And the kensai gets to use an action point to replace an action, while the cleric and paladin paths get the standard extra action plus. Overall, the kensai's probably better off with the +5% chance to hit on every single attack.

[Voss]

]The problem's that nothing of that's even as interesting as a psychic warrior, for example, so the issue's isn't "the classes aren't crazy like spellcasters", but "they don't do anything worth talking about".

I don't really agree with that.

Bursting into the room the party is face with the villainous wizard and his guards. Seizing the initiative, the fighter surges across the room, between the unprepared flunkies. With his greatsword he hacks at the one on the left, taking advantage of the resultant confusion to step foward and hack a bloody trail across the chest of the wizard with the backswing. Barely pausing for breath, he swings his sword again, decapitating the stunned wizard before he could even draw the breath to speak the arcane words of power...

Yeah. A first level 4e fighter can totally do that. He'll have to blow all his resources to do it (encounter, daily and action point), but it is possible.
And given the profound effect it will have on the battle, expending his resources seems a fair trade to me. As he goes up in level, he's spending less of his total resources to do that, and the encounter power is usable again, and he'll get the action point back after another fight.

He can still miss, and if the opponent is much higher than he is, the 8d6+10 he's doing between those two attacks may not actually kill it, but thats quite a bit of stuff, without going for an OTT Wuxia feel.

What does the 3e fighter do? charge. swing. swing swing. Oh, wait, the wizard cast sleep 3 rounds ago. I guess the fights over.
Yes- I can use descriptive language to make the charge interesting, but I do think the 4e fighter is capable of a lot more stuff, and more interesting stuff without shifting genres.

Plus its doing something I've wanted for a long time- toning down the casters, so they're actually playing the same game, while magic is still magic. I'm fine with flight and invisibility being high level. For classic fantasy, which I prefer, that isn't shit that did people every day all day long. So yeah, I'm pleased.


And the places they've fucked up (and there are places they totally have)? Its smaller and easier to fix then the places they fucked up 3rd. I can live with the flaws to the point that I'm actually interested in DMing 4e, an idea that actively repulsed me in 3rd.

[PhoneLobster]

There is nothing you can possibly do with descriptive language or bagging on irrelevant older editions that is in any way an excuse for an edition that gives out a high level custom 'paragon' class ability that gives +1 AC in chainmail only with a straight face.

That is EVERYTHING so horribly wrong with fourth edition right there.

And its exactly the bullshit that they pulled with saga, no real abilities just piles of fucking lame tiny bonuses.

Like everyone is saying stupid incremental bonuses aren't even fun when big enough to have an impact.

Put me on your so called "I haven't heard that criticism before" train. Because just like when I used that criticism back with with stupid saga edition, its the lack of anything but that sort of stupidity that leaves me very unimpressed.

And painting that line of criticism as a desire for high powered energy cocks is not exactly mature, or valid, or going to fly around here.

I don't care if if its flavoured as energy cocks or low powered gritty skin of your teeth swashbuckling, if my new class ability isn't an OPTION and is instead a negligible incremental bonus then it SUCKS and a designer somewhere deserves a punch in the face.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

I think that that pretty much sums it up.

Everything SunTzuWarmaster said is exactly right.

I only didn't voice it because Frank already did it better than I would; the thought that someone with a brain in the right place would disagree never even crossed my head, so no reason to even say it here (or so I thought), and I've indeed talked variously about it on MSN.

Agreed. I thought it was self-evident.

PhoneLobster is also right on here.
_____________________________________

Voss, I'll just pick one part of your post to address:

...but I do think the 4e fighter is capable of a lot more stuff, and more interesting stuff without shifting genres.

So that is your response to the criticism that 4e is a bunch of bullshit bonuses with no real cinematic abilities (ex: Fighter/Kensai gets: a reroll, +1 hit, +4 damage). Or are you considering feats like the +1 ac while wearing chainmail to be the meat of 4e's "more interesting stuff."

I'm not even convinced that the 4e Fighter will be more interesting than the 3e Fighter. And that is damming.

[JonSetanta]

Voss: If I am wrong and you are correct about that interpretation, then I am even more disheartened. That's even less powers.
BAWWWWW

[shau]

I'm comfortable with Beowulf wrestling Grendel in a fight to the death and ripping his arm off. I think 4e can manage that. I'm not as comfortable with Beowulf raping Grendel's mom to death with his energy penis.

I think my new favorite example creature for where fighters should be is the colossal animated object. It is a CR 10 creature that is made out of stone and is colossal. Honestly, it is not that deadly a creature. At level 10 the fighter should be able to handle one by himself.

Think about that for a second. At level 10 the fighter needs to be able to stand toe to toe with a colossal creature. And just beat him down. Look at the size comparison chart in the PHB. Notice the fact that the example human is roughly the size of the colossal dragon's toenail. For another example, imagine playing Shadow of the Colossus without using weakpoints, just letting the hero bash things with his sword. That's a tenth level fighter.

The fighter needs abilities that are cinematic enough that this actually seems plausible. There are a lot of ways to get there, including energy penis I guess, but he has to be there when the giant statue comes to life and starts rumbling forward.

[JonSetanta]

Every Fighter needs an energy penis.

[CatharzGodfoot]

The fighter needs abilities that are cinematic enough that this actually seems plausible. There are a lot of ways to get there, including energy penis I guess, but he has to be there when the giant statue comes to life and starts rumbling forward.

That's assuming we want colossal animated objects to be weak, and that we want 10th level characters to be able to smack them down in toe-to-toe combat.

I'd just as soon play a game where the adventure is getting into the colossal object and figuring out how to disable it.

[Koumei]

That would indeed be cool, getting inside the object and finding things to jam spanners into.

I'm also on the "I didn't think it needed to be said that 4E is shit because the abilities are stupid piles of tiny bonuses no-one cares about instead of actual things you can do, and cool options." train.

And am I the only person who actually thinks the level 10+ "crazy town" was, balance issues notwithstanding, completely awesome?

[virgil]

Is the difference between 'heroic' and 'paragon' (single digits vs teens) seriously going to be stuff like "you get to move 15 feet faster in a round"?

When the entire game is nothing but accumulating tiny bonuses, then I don't see the point in having the system be so many levels long. You can only have the opposition be so much larger than the earlier set before the entire genre changes. Just stacking the numbers larger and larger turns it into DBZ at its worst.

[Voss]

I'm comfortable with Beowulf wrestling Grendel in a fight to the death and ripping his arm off. I think 4e can manage that. I'm not as comfortable with Beowulf raping Grendel's mom to death with his energy penis.

I think my new favorite example creature for where fighters should be is the colossal animated object. It is a CR 10 creature that is made out of stone and is colossal. Honestly, it is not that deadly a creature. At level 10 the fighter should be able to handle one by himself.

Think about that for a second. At level 10 the fighter needs to be able to stand toe to toe with a colossal creature. And just beat him down. Look at the size comparison chart in the PHB. Notice the fact that the example human is roughly the size of the colossal dragon's toenail. For another example, imagine playing Shadow of the Colossus without using weakpoints, just letting the hero bash things with his sword. That's a tenth level fighter.

The fighter needs abilities that are cinematic enough that this actually seems plausible. There are a lot of ways to get there, including energy penis I guess, but he has to be there when the giant statue comes to life and starts rumbling forward.

OK. I don't know yet if the 4e fighter can do that or not. I know most 3e fighters can't, unless they're sitting on an open plain with a horse and a lance.

[Voss]

...but I do think the 4e fighter is capable of a lot more stuff, and more interesting stuff without shifting genres.

So that is your response to the criticism that 4e is a bunch of bullshit bonuses with no real cinematic abilities (ex: Fighter/Kensai gets: a reroll, +1 hit, +4 damage). Or are you considering feats like the +1 ac while wearing chainmail to be the meat of 4e's "more interesting stuff."

I'm not even convinced that the 4e Fighter will be more interesting than the 3e Fighter. And that is damming.

Not really. Frankly cinematic can be pissed on and burned as far as I'm concerned. Just like over the top unrealistic melodrama with explosions, since thats what 'cinematic' means to me.

But the catch is, yes, feats in 4e suck. They all do, within the limits of sorta crap to extremely crap. But the abilities of classes is in their 'powers' not the feats. So if you're looking for interesting things to do, you're looking in the wrong place. Even the kensai 'path'/class features are the big stuff.

Interesting stuff comes in with the fighter's exploits, when he pushing the enemy back with every hit, until he backs them up against the wall and butchers them, smacking them down everytime they try to get out of bad tactical position his battleskills have put them in.

But whatever, it appeals to me, and doesn't appeal to others. This is not a shocking thing.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

Frankly cinematic can be pissed on and burned as far as I'm concerned. Just like over the top unrealistic melodrama with explosions, since thats what 'cinematic' means to me.

Thankfully, that is not what 'cinematic' means to most people. Cinematic means 'cool looking' or 'awesome' or interesting. And 4e isn't that.

But the catch is, yes, feats in 4e suck. They all do, within the limits of sorta crap to extremely crap. But the abilities of classes is in their 'powers' not the feats. So if you're looking for interesting things to do, you're looking in the wrong place. Even the kensai 'path'/class features are the big stuff.

Interesting stuff comes in with the fighter's exploits, when he pushing the enemy back with every hit, until he backs them up against the wall and butchers them, smacking them down everytime they try to get out of bad tactical position his battleskills have put them in.

Fine. Lets do a comparison of 'interesting stuff' in a 3e Fighter 1, and a 4e Fighter 1. Lets start with the 4e Fighter: What can he do? He can bull rush. That's it.

More specifically, lets look at his exploits:
Cleave: 3 splash damage. Meaningless.
Tide of Iron: Bull Rush
Passing Attack: 1 extra attack. At 1/encounter, this rates a 'meh'.
Brutal Strike: Bigger numbers.

Ok. So all of the 4e's Fighter 1 exploits are one of two things: 1) Bigger numbers. or 2) Bull Rush. That is not at all impressive or interesting.

Lets look at a 3e Fighter 1. He can:
Bull Rush
Damage enemies
Trip (4e Fighter 1 can't)
Disarm (4e Fighter 1 can't)
Grapple (4e Fighter 1 can't)
Sunder (4e Fighter 1 can't)
Threaten with reach (4e Fighter 1 can't)

So. In effect, the 3e Fighter 1 has many times more interesting abilities compared the 4e Fighter 1. And the 3e Fighter 1 hasn't even spent his class ability yet (1 Feat! ). And the 3e Fighter is shit!

[Fwib]

There is actual released stuff saying that you cannot even attempt to trip/disarm/grapple/sunder 'untrained'?

[Voss]

I'm uncertain about whether or not those can be done- I haven't seen released stuff saying one way or the other.
Actually, I take that back, grappling *can* be done- there were rules for in the D&D XP info.

Sphere left out a few things, though some are pretty minor.-
4e fighter gets:
Impose a penalty on a creature that attacks his allies. Unfortunately this is pretty shit, since the penalty is smaller than the likely difference between the fighter's AC and his allies' AC. So we can ignore this.

Free attack when an enemy tries to 5' step away from him

Bonus to hit on opportunity attacks.

Of course, we haven't seen all the level 1 exploits yet either, so we don't know the full range of his choices.

The 3e fighter might be ahead by trip, reach and disarm/sunder (these are the same thing to me since they have the same effect- relieve an enemy of his weapon, except disarm means you actually get to keep the loot afterwards). Then again, until we see more, he might not be. Thats 3 maybes. Not exactly 'many times', especially given how subjective our definitions of interesting are.

I disagree on passing attack. Even a little bit of extra movement and an extra attack is big, especially at first level.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Say what you want about the 4e fighter. The 3e fighter can still use Whirlwind or Short Haft, feats that give legitimate combat options rather than flat numeric plusses.

[JonSetanta]

Feats list isn't out yet. Only then can we have direct comparison.
But it is true, by the way these abilities are leaning that there might be some predictability.
I won't cast my vote quite yet.

[PhoneLobster]

Actually it doesn't really matter how the feats lean in giving options or stupid ass incremental bonuses.

We ALREADY have a large and growing set of "abilities" that are nothing but annoying boring combat bonuses.

All that material is already not just wasted but actively counter productive. Everything we learn about 4th edition from here on out could be good news and it won't change the fact that the basic class abilities are the limp wristed saga-esque kings of suckitude.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

All that material is already not just wasted but actively counter productive. Everything we learn about 4th edition from here on out could be good news and it won't change the fact that the basic class abilities are the limp wristed saga-esque kings of suckitude.

Could you give me examples of saga ability suckitudes?

[PhoneLobster]

examples of saga ability suckitudes

Fortunately I never invested in a copy.

So no.

But maybe someone else can dig up something like one of the noble's various +1 morale bonus to another character's skill check type of class 'abilities' for you.

Edit: I think it is worth pointing out again that what Saga edition did was SO POPULAR that when some ass on the busy and crowded WOTC forums felt he should direct an effort to make a D&D conversion he garnered the support of not 100s, not tens, but about 5 dudes.

Who all lost interest in breath takingly short time and had the rules comprehension abilities to actually suggest that things like that +1 skill bonus should trade off against not 1 but 2 levels worth of the spellcasting feature from a full spell casting class.

That's Saga calibre for you...

[SphereOfFeetMan]

There is actual released stuff saying that you cannot even attempt to trip/disarm/grapple/sunder 'untrained'?

Yup.

I'm uncertain about whether or not those can be done- I haven't seen released stuff saying one way or the other.

They cannot be done. It is all listed on page 46 of Enworld's Pre-release Rules Compilation. I'm not going to dig through old announcements for the original WotC statements however.

Actually, I take that back, grappling *can* be done- there were rules for in the D&D XP info.

Actually, you can't grapple someone. You can make a "Grab" instead. All this does is immobilize your opponent for one round, and is even described as your character choosing to spend his round acting like a tanglefoot bag. It is so heavily changed (read: nerfed) from 3e grappling that it should not even be compared to 3e grappling.

Free attack when an enemy tries to 5' step away from him

A 3e Fighter has AoO's. If he had a reach weapon, he is even better than the 4e Fighter at this (3e does this while spending no class abilities).

Bonus to hit on opportunity attacks.

Again. Bigger numbers (or bullshit bonuses) are not interesting.

Of course, we haven't seen all the level 1 exploits yet either, so we don't know the full range of his choices.

True. Are you implying that his other choices could be much better? Doing so would imply that 4e exploit choices would be severely unbalanced compared to each other (as bad as 3e opportunity choices). So either way it is bad. (All uninteresting choices, or severe imbalance).

...especially given how subjective our definitions of interesting are.

True. I consider diverse combat options to be more interesting than a +1 or other bigger numbers. No matter what those numbers are.

I disagree on passing attack. Even a little bit of extra movement and an extra attack is big, especially at first level.

Bullcrap on a stick. Passing Attack is a 1/encounter ability where he does an extra 10.5 damage (avg). A level 1 kobold skirmisher has 27 hp. So 4e Fighters special 1/encounter ability will take off about 1/3 the hp of one kobold. Ugh.

[virgil]

Meh, unless the character was built around the tactic (read: took the feat), I never saw trip/disarm/grapple/sunder even attempted in 3e. The only time you really have a chance untrained is at the very low levels, where you're rewarded with a stab in the face and less chance of success than just attacking.

[Voss]

Pretty much agree with that.

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.

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

Yep, grapple got nerfed. I happen to think it needed to. It certainly wasn't a good option for a 3e character once you got past level 6 or so and started running into larger creatures specialized in slaughtering you with it. Well, except druids, of course, since they could play in the same pool.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Edit: I think it is worth pointing out again that what Saga edition did was SO POPULAR that when some ass on the busy and crowded WOTC forums felt he should direct an effort to make a D&D conversion he garnered the support of not 100s, not tens, but about 5 dudes.

Who all lost interest in breath takingly short time and had the rules comprehension abilities to actually suggest that things like that +1 skill bonus should trade off against not 1 but 2 levels worth of the spellcasting feature from a full spell casting class.

That's Saga calibre for you...

There is another factor going on here in that everyone knew that 4th edition was coming out relatively soon. So, much of the effort in a conversion would be for naught.

I look at some of the things of Saga Edition as using a feat to gain force powers, and that you could continually grab this feat over and over again, and the fact that these force powers were forces to be reckoned with (in general), i.e. useful. I enjoyed the prestige classes with less stringent requirements than 3.5's and that many of them could be gotten into at earlier levels.

I enjoyed the Talent, Feat, Talent, Feat levelling paradigm and hope to see the same thing continued for 4th.

[PhoneLobster]

everyone knew that 4th edition was coming out

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.

I look at some of the things of Saga Edition as using a feat to gain force powers

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.

I enjoyed the prestige classes with less stringent requirements than 3.5's and that many of them could be gotten into at earlier levels.

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!

I enjoyed the Talent, Feat, Talent, Feat levelling paradigm

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!

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.