Why do they hold back the cool toys until level 25-30?

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:14 am

Shall I start?
4e fighter
-attack & cleave for minor damage
-attack & shift enemy a square
- extra damage attack, and ally can shift
- extra damage attack, and gain bonuses to hit that enemy [1/day]
-negate combat advantage
- attack against several enemies in close
- extra damage attack, and target is immobilized [1/day]
- reduce damage from attack
- extra damage and 1 round AC penalty

So, the 4e fight has a grand total of 9 discreet things he can do, 2 of which can only be used once per day. Plus I guess grab and bull rush, for 11. And if you count combat challenge and combat superiority as 'things', thats 13, but they're very dependent on the enemy doing something to provoke them.

A 3e fighter...
lets see...
power attack, cleave, combat expertise, imp disarm, imp trip, imp bull rush, imp critical, imp shield bash, imp overrun

Gosh. 9 discreet things [counting power attacking or raising AC as a 'thing', plus grapple, sunder, and just plain attacking normally, huh, thats 12. Plus he can use these things at will or in combination to his best advantage.

Yeah, the 4e fighter is so much more amazing. He's has roughly the same number of options, but with more limits, less versatility, less flexibility and all around less interesting.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:58 am

Improved Critical sort of exists in 4e.

The annoyances with the 3e fighter:

--You have to take a feat not to suck with most of the combat maneuvers.
--Things like Power Attack and Combat Expertise require a feat.

Fortunately for the 3e fighter, he gets a billion feats. Although he still sucks.

Now, you're going to get the typical, "In all my 307 years of DMing, I have never once seen a player try to grapple an opponent!" crap.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:10 am

Psychic Robot wrote:Improved Critical sort of exists in 4e.

It does. But its something only a demigod can do.

Or through a strange assortment of paragon paths or specific class powers.

And yeah, there is a lot wrong with the 3e fighter. Thats pretty much undisputed by anyone with sense. The point was, the 4e fighter is OMG!More!Amazing than the 3e fighter, which it isn't. Its very similar, but even more straight jacketed in what it can do. And every other class has been brought down to that level of suck, regardless of whether they were over the top, like the wizard, or actually pretty well designed, like the rogue.

The rogue, by the way, its actively worth crying over. Its just a light bladesman now, who can do shit with traps and locks. It can never be anything else. And this is class that Mearls really wanted to 'fix'. Well, he did. He helped chop its balls right off.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:11 am

You're joking, right?

That's retarded. With their critical fetish, you'd think they would have made criticals occur more often.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:24 am

Psychic Robot wrote:You're joking, right?

That's retarded. With their critical fetish, you'd think they would have made criticals occur more often.

Nope. Improved crit is a epic level feat [by weapon group]. A daggermaster (a rogue PP) can crit on an 18-20 at 11th level... but only with daggers. A few paladin powers crit a marked foe on a 19-20. But really, daggers are the last thing you want to use, because dagger crits are meaningless- a dagger crit causes less damage than an average damage roll with a rapier. Sure, you don't get all the critical effects, but at low level... eh. Its not really worthwhile.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:25 am

Well, crits do max damage in 4e (rather than multiplying), correct? So even if the rogue were using a weapon power than gave him 7[W] damage, he'd be doing what, a measly 28 damage?

That blows.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:30 am

Exactly. You'll get the giant stack of +xd6 [or d8, or d12 or whatever based on the magic property] so you eventually get a giant pile of dice more often, but you really have to ride the odds on that. Any time you don't crit, you're sucking ass.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:41 am

So if your crits do +xd12 damage, doesn't that mean that characters are overall going to match (or at least keep up with) strikers in terms of damage spikes?

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:51 am

Just on crits. But not really, because everyone can have a +d12 crit type weapon or implement. So the frankly marginal damage bonus that strikers get is pretty consistent. But small.

But really, this is part of the problems with the roles. Everyone does damage, everyone has stun-lock type things, everyone has area attacks. Healing is about the only thing that isn't available to everyone, but that isn't even wholly true. There are bits and pieces here and there. Its one of the things that makes the all cleric party so effective, because they can still do everything.

And with skill training feats, I do mean everything.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:07 am

Ravengm wrote:Even so, it still seems odd to me that non-caster classes can use the rituals. It's not a bad thing, it just is weird.

I think its pretty sensible for a high magic world.

Harlune · Post by **Harlune** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:19 am

Draco_Argentum wrote:
Ravengm wrote:Even so, it still seems odd to me that non-caster classes can use the rituals. It's not a bad thing, it just is weird.
I think its pretty sensible for a high magic world.

Yeah... make no mistake, I loved the idea behind rituals. Letting every class spend a feat or two to get a mini-spellbook for utility spells was a fantastic idea.

Now if only they hadn't made every single damn ritual so painful to use that they might as well not exist...

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:11 am

You sound to me like you're kidding yourself that 3E was better, because you're viewing things entirely through the spellcaster's viewpoint, which is a very specialized viewpoint.

3E spellcasters had an interesting number of options. Most of the martial classes didn't. No 4E class does.
A game where only half the choices are interesting is better than a game where no choices are interesting - that's the core of the matter.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 3:56 pm

Daggermasters actually pretty much have to use Vicious daggers, which ar pretty cheap and do +xd12 on a crit.

And Daggermasters are in fact pretty awesome, as rogues go. Rapiers cost a feat, and daggers do have an extra +to hit over them. You take other crit-fetish feats (surprise knockdown, epic resurgence, triumphant attack). Plus, you can take ranged powers and not need to buy a Shuriken.

Tydanosaurus · Post by **Tydanosaurus** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:35 pm

RandomCasualty2 wrote:4E really kind of does assume you know what you're doing. It's based off min/maxed characters being played relatively well.

Not really. It's based on min-maxed characters played randomly.

Min-maxed b/c if you fall off the RNG, at all, you're worthless.

Randomly, b/c it doesn't matter what you choose to do most of the time. Pick a power at random. It will work, generally, half the time. It could be the perfect power, or the worst power, for any given situation, and it will work half the time.

In our last session, we were missing a player, and we literally played a 4th PC randomly by rolling a die to see what it did. Nobody noticed much difference.

The 13 Wise Buttlords · Mon Jul 21, 2008 6:18 pm

And wait. Fuck the spellcasters view point. Go make a 8th level 3e fighter and 8th level 4e fighter. Take meaningful feats for the 3e fighter, and keep in mind all the stuff he can do anyway.
Compare them. Who really has more options?

Actually, at this point in the game, the 4E fighter is better than the 3E fighter by a small but noticable margin.

The problem with the 4E fighter is that this is pretty much as good as the fighter is going to get. The damage and schticks a 3E fighter can do could go way, way up due to PrCs and the open multiclassing system. The 4E fighter is going to be permanently gimped by how poorly designed the power system is. Here's a hint: only lazy idiots played pure fighters. Min-maxxers played a multiclassing mishmash and 'real' roleplayers took some kind of fruity PrC.

I mean, at the end of 4E's life they could publish new encounter and daily powers that dish out 50% more damage than average and you still wouldn't notice much of a difference over the course of a day. And that's being generous with the Power Creep 4E is going to have. Furthermore, with classes being on the rails, even the most kick-ass paragon path is going to hand out at most 3 shaggy dog powers and stupid bullshit class abilities like '+1 to attack rolls with one weapon'. 3E sword-based classes wouldn't wipe their asses with that.

MartinHarper · Post by **MartinHarper** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 7:02 pm

Nitpicking, but I can't see "improved critical" or "cleave" in Voss's list as "options". They sometimes happen when you attack, but they aren't a choice for the player. Similarly, I agree that 4e combat challenge/superiority aren't really options either.

The 4e fighter has 9 level-appropriate fighter powers, as Voss notes, and a level-appropriate racial power. He might well take Power Attack and a multi-class feat to give him another option each. I'd also mention second wind, action points, charge, and first aid. Bull Rush is replaced by Tide of Iron, and Grab is lame in comparison with Spinning Sweep or Dizzying Blow.

The 3e fighter has attack (with a variable amount of power attack or combat expertise, and either with his sword or his shield), disarm, trip, bull rush, and overrun. That's a few options. How many of them are level appropriate?

The lack of interaction between 4th edition powers is a weakness. Something like Sweeping Blow would be more flexible if you could use it to make an at-will attack against every adjacent enemy, rather than having to make a basic attack.

Tydanosaurus wrote:Min-maxed b/c if you fall off the RNG, at all, you're worthless.

The difference between a min-maxed PC and a "X is cool" PC looks to be ~10% hit chance and ~10% damage, as a very rough rule of thumb. That doesn't seem worthless to me, though it is noticeable. Have you had a problem with some PCs being much better than others?

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 7:34 pm

Voss wrote:Shall I start?

A 3e fighter...
lets see...
power attack, cleave, combat expertise, imp disarm, imp trip, imp bull rush, imp critical, imp shield bash, imp overrun

Ok see now I know you're just making shit up. Improved bull rush? Improved shield bash? improved overrun? WTF? Who actually uses those? In all my playing of 3.5 I've seen people take improved bullrush as a prereq feat only, and never seen anyone actually use it. I've never seen anyoine take improved overrun period.

Tripping and disarming are like specialized stuff. NOt every fighter has them.

If you're a 3.5 fighter you're using power attack and cleave, and that's likely it. You've got other stuff to augment your aiblities, like shock trooper and stuff.

Take any individual fighter build in 3.5 and compare it to a 4E one, instead of the entire class where you assume that it has taken every single feat in the game. Because seriously, when I see improved overurn and improved bull rush on the list of awesome abilities, it makes your point look like complete weak sauce.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:09 pm

RC, bull rush/overrun/whatever are in concept abilities that work, and mostly they fail in 3.5 due to lack of numbers to affect monsters vulnerable to them. So, mostly, you'd have to fix the numbers behind it and then they'd be usable, not chop them off the game. And I hope you can see how disarm or sunder can be non-game-breaking (unlike plus-addicted fvckwads would say), right?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:33 pm

What Voss did was to compare a random selection of 4e powers and a rndom selection of 3.5 Core Rules feats and determined indeed that the number of "things" that a Fighter could do in each game system was about equl, as indeed it is. In reality, the kind of character who is going to be really existing with Improved Bullrush is going to be using Shock Trooper, but according to the 4diots, that's an "unfair comparison" because 3.5 has the advantage (such as it is) of having the Complete Warrior and shit while 4e is supposedly only partially complete because it has just the Core Books.

Of course, 4e went with having less classes at greater detail as compared to 3rd edition, which means that 4e actually does have its equivalents of Shock Trooper, it just doesn't have Barbarians or Druids. So I'm not sure how unfair that comparison really is. And of course it behooves us to note that most 4e powers aren't really different or interesting. Reckless Strike allows you to, once per battle, give up 2 points of to-hit and get a small damage bonus. Counting that as a "thing" that a character can do is precious close to counting each distinct point of Power Attacking that a Fighter can do in 3rd edition as a "thing.

In any case, a "real" Fighter of 8th level has 5 bonus feats, which may very well be: Power Attack, Improved Bullrush, Expertise, Improved Trip, Shock Trooper. And we'll assume that the other feats that the character is guaranteed just for being alive are all wasted on the kind of numeric bullshit that 4e feats are given over to and are lost against the backdrop of having rolled better or worse on your Wisdom. Our 8th level 4e Fighter has 2 at-wills, 3 encounters, 2 dailies, and 2 utilities. Also they inherently have the ability to jump in and grab, bullrush, or charge. Nominally, that's 12 "things" but in a very real way it's much less than that because stuff like Brute Strike isn't really different from Reckless Strike except that one of them is higher level and is usable once per encounter while the other uses up a lower level daily slot. Seriously, don't even care. But sure, let's be generous. Our 3rd edition Fighter has to compete against someone who has 11 things to do, 2 of which suck monkey balls and only 2 of which are part of the normal repertoire and can be used more than once in a fight. The 3rd edition Fighter can Full Attack or charge with or without Expertise or Power Attack, which in 4e logic is seriously 8 things right there. And he can use a bow to reasonably level appropriate effect (although admittedly this will not be true for long). And you can directed bullrush, you can domino rush, and you can heedless charge (trading AC for damage). And of course your domino rush gives you an Improved Trip attack cascade so it's quite effective and you can start in on an improved trip shenanigan, and while I can start in on the marginal tactics like Grpple and Disarm... I don't even care because we're already past what the 4e character can do!

We just took a basic no-brain build off of what is widely acknowledged as the worst class in the game and we still came up with more choices round-to-round than the 4e Fighter gets. And none of this stuff has limitations like "once per encounter" or "once per day" it's all on tap every round with no preamble. This is not funny.

-Username17

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:32 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:Now, you're going to get the typical, "In all my 307 years of DMing, I have never once seen a player try to grapple an opponent!" crap.

In all my playing of 3.5 I've seen people take improved bullrush as a prereq feat only, and never seen anyone actually use it. I've never seen anyoine take improved overrun period.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:38 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:What Voss did was to compare a random selection of 4e powers and a rndom selection of 3.5 Core Rules feats and determined indeed that the number of "things" that a Fighter could do in each game system was about equl, as indeed it is. In reality, the kind of character who is going to be really existing with Improved Bullrush is going to be using Shock Trooper, but according to the 4diots, that's an "unfair comparison" because 3.5 has the advantage (such as it is) of having the Complete Warrior and shit while 4e is supposedly only partially complete because it has just the Core Books.

Honestly, take shock trooper and it only proves the point even more that the 3E character is one dimensional and boring. A shock trooper fighter is effective, but he's a one trick pony. His abilities amount to one big uber charge as his only tactic that he basically tries to spam as much as possible. And he doesn't do anything interesting. It's just "I charge for a big damage number." No knockback, no status conditions, just raw numeric damage.

And of course it behooves us to note that most 4e powers aren't really different or interesting. Reckless Strike allows you to, once per battle, give up 2 points of to-hit and get a small damage bonus. Counting that as a "thing" that a character can do is precious close to counting each distinct point of Power Attacking that a Fighter can do in 3rd edition as a "thing.

Honestly while 4Es powers are kind of bland, 3Es fighter powers were much more so. The 4E fighter can stun people, push them, trip them, force them to come toward him, prevent them from escaping, protect his allies and so forth.

The 3E fighter. Well he had basically damage and maybe one status effect. Yeah, seriously. If you were a trip fighter you could trip, if you specialized in sunder, then you could sunder. But you're just not going to have many status effects you can dish out because they require highly specialized builds. Even pushing someone one square without provoking an AoO is a monumental task that requires you burn a feat. Getting to be able to move as part of your attack requires a 3 feat chain, and that won't even let you full attack, only standard.

Now I realize you probably use the tomes, so you haven't played official 3.5 in awhile, but seriously when you look back, fighters and barbarians couldn't do anything except inflict damage and maybe could trip (of course this required a spiked chain pretty much).

As a fighter, I'd choose 4E everytime if I want options. Because if you want to talk about just spamming one uninteresting tactic, then 3E is exactly that. Make your attack, roll your damage. Yeah there are a few permutations where you subtract some from attackj to add to damage, or you get extra attacks here and there, but still... it's just bland damage.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:42 pm

I am sad.

I just reactivated my old Guild Wars account, and I realized that GW is what 4e wishes it could be. It does everything 4e attempts to do, and it does it without failing miserably. The mesmer actually controls combat. He doesn't shoot fireballs while the 4etards jerk-off over how killing minions is battlefield control, he hexes you so that you can't use your abilities without killing yourself.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:54 pm

And a large majority of the 4E fighter's abilities are just attacks that do damage with varying quantity and accuracy.

The 4E fighter might have more options, but he's only able to do each option once or twice a battle, then resort to generic swings. The 3E fighter can do two tricks competently outside of generic swings (in the lower levels), but can do them over-and-over; though that amounts to twice as often as the 4E fighter due to circumstances.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:56 pm

Virgileso is correct: the 4e fighter looks like he a lot of options because he has ten billion near-identical abilities that have different names.

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:56 pm

Guild Wars lacks a jump button though, which makes me sad.