[Not 4e] What will we see from 5e?

[Hotpants Joe]

Not sure to what hostility you are referring to exactly (I use Ignore), but you shouldn't judge this place based on one or two posters. On the other hand, keep the following in mind:

1. Discussion here can escalate and become adversarial. It just happens. You either can take it or not. I feel the information and quality of the analysis here to be worth the pain I feel from time to time when reading posts. Deal with it or leave as people here will not change. I am just saying.

Hey, don't worry about it. I have a thick skin so it's not that. I just don't get why people do it. We're having a debate about a game where you pretend to be elves.

Point 2: Argh, originally I meant to just make this brief but I'm afraid I went off on a tangent.

I understand. When I said skill challenges work fine, I referred specifically to it as a DM's tool used to break a scene into parts and tell a story. For that part at least it *does* work. I haven't read the entirety of Bill's links that point out how skill challenges mathematically don't work. But one thing that stood out to me was the stacking "aid another" option, which my groups tend to use situationally and in a non-stacking manner. If by "skill challenges don't work" people mean to say "they don't pose a challenge and there is no realistic chance of failure" then it's possible my group has been doing it wrong, because I've been in games with a lot of close-calls when it comes to skill challenges. Even in ones where we're given freebies. Then again, my group tends to be true to roleplaying and not always use the most optimal skill for a given task, because it's what their character would do.

3. Thanks for the advice and everything, but... most of this didn't need to be said. No offense. It's common sense.

Lols. Sounds like he's being welcomed to the Den for real. Also, 4.Fail Paladins do piddly shit damage, even by 4.Fail standards.

Care to back this up?

[zeruslord]

If he had told me to suck a bag of coks, I would have taken it completely in stride.

From here. Just so you understand. On the other hand, accusing someone of being intellectually dishonest is serious.

[Username17]

I understand. When I said skill challenges work fine, I referred specifically to it as a DM's tool used to break a scene into parts and tell a story. For that part at least it *does* work. I haven't read the entirety of Bill's links that point out how skill challenges mathematically don't work. But one thing that stood out to me was the stacking "aid another" option, which my groups tend to use situationally and in a non-stacking manner. If by "skill challenges don't work" people mean to say "they don't pose a challenge and there is no realistic chance of failure" then it's possible my group has been doing it wrong, because I've been in games with a lot of close-calls when it comes to skill challenges. Then again, my group tends to be true to roleplaying and not always use the most optimal skill for a given task, because it's what their character would do.

You're really digging yourself here. See this is something that is independently verifiable. This isn't "This mechanic makes me feel warm and tingly" this is a mechanic which has specific game goals and specific numeric inputs.

Skill Challenges fail absolutely on every single possible scale. They have design goals. They fail those design goals. They are more binary than individual skill checks. They do not encourage other players to get involved. The do not encourage players to vary their tactics. Before the errata you needed perfect tactics just to have a 17% chance to succeed. After the errata, perfect play gives you as much as a 100% chance to succeed. But perfect tactics really is just "One player picks up the die and rolls it 12 times while everyone else sits there with their mouth open waiting for it to end."

That's fucked. The subsystem is fucked. The designers who went to print with that even though it clearly didn't work are scum. They are scum because they took a central mechanic to the game and either released it knowing that it was unworkable or they never gave it even a cursory playthrough or lookover at any time prior to publishing. Either way that is disgusting behavior. This isn't a minor thing. It's "Everything outside combat." And it does not work by any metric.

You seriously just said that it was OK for the skill challenge system to be completely boring, actively punish the entire team for players theoretically attempting to help, and be virtually unlosable if played straight. And this is all OK because your friends are such a bunch of ROLEplayers that they will actively work against their own team until there "feels" like there is some dramatic tension. Fuck you. That's not ROLEplayng, that's retarded.

-Username17

[Hotpants Joe]

You're really digging yourself here. See this is something that is independently verifiable. This isn't "This mechanic makes me feel warm and tingly" this is a mechanic which has specific game goals and specific numeric inputs.

I admitted right there in my quote that I wasn't being objective and mathematical. If one group of gamers are the type to have fun through probabilities and dice-rolling alone, then I can see why skill challenges, if used with your "perfect strategy" would fail and be boring as hell. You really aren't throwing this back in my face in any way by calling me out on being subjective when I admitted I was.

Skill Challenges fail absolutely on every single possible scale. They have design goals. They fail those design goals. They are more binary than individual skill checks. They do not encourage other players to get involved. The do not encourage players to vary their tactics. Before the errata you needed perfect tactics just to have a 17% chance to succeed. After the errata, perfect play gives you as much as a 100% chance to succeed. But perfect tactics really is just "One player picks up the die and rolls it 12 times while everyone else sits there with their mouth open waiting for it to end."

Hold on a second. Why would you run a skill challenge and allow one character to do everything? How is that in any way fun instead of getting the whole group in on it? Hell, that doesn't even make sense. 4e characters tend to have 4-5 skills they're good at and even then they're generally not that widespread (unless you're a bard with crazy skill feats). Since when do good DMs produce skill challenges that one PC can excell at while others sit back and don't say anything? Since when do they let one character do that? That's sounds like DM failure to me, honestly.

That's fucked. The subsystem is fucked. The designers who went to print with that even though it clearly didn't work are scum. They are scum because they took a central mechanic to the game and either released it knowing that it was unworkable or they never gave it even a cursory playthrough or lookover at any time prior to publishing. Either way that is disgusting behavior. This isn't a minor thing. It's "Everything outside combat." And it does not work by any metric.

No, it's not "everything outside of combat". If you have played in 4e and are standing by this, then you've played with bad players/DMs.

You seriously just said that it was OK for the skill challenge system to be completely boring, actively punish the entire team for players theoretically attempting to help, and be virtually unlosable if played straight. And this is all OK because your friends are such a bunch of ROLEplayers that they will actively work against their own team until there "feels" like there is some dramatic tension. Fuck you. That's not ROLEplayng, that's retarded.

-Username17

Because the point of any roleplaying game is not to have fun, but to win and roll dice repeatedly while being bland as hell? You're the one who seems to be going out of his way to make skill challenges boring, not WotC. And those instances in my games where characters don't use the most optimal skill? Rare.

I also can't believe you glossed over the point I was making about the DM telling a story and splitting up a scene into parts. You completely disregarded that and are saying, "fuck skill challenges. since technically by the rules I can have one PC do all the work while everyone else stuffs cheetos into their faces, nobody can possibly have success with this mechanic". And that's bullshit.

Then again, you're the guy who decided to arbitrarily claim that 4e has been a financial disaster for WotC when both of its PHBs have been on the WSJ non-fiction best seller list. So this line of crap doesn't surprise me.

[Username17]

The thing where Hasbro counts all their 4e orders up to the release date as sales for the release week, causing them to get a spike in sales that puts them on the WSJ best sellers list for one week (but not the NYT bestsellers list because it is calculated differently) is not really very interesting to me. I'm much more interested in sustained sales, and numbers for that are incredibly hard to come by.

But mostly HPJ, you are behaving stupidly and you should feel stupid. You just said that behaving in the manner dictated by the rules to be effective was bad. Or more accurately, you said that if the game presents options that are not interesting that it is the player's responsibility to ignore those options and use their powers of make believe to do something interesting instead. And while I can sort of agree with that, what I can't agree with is the notion that there is any advantage to pretending that I am playing system X when actually I'm just ignoring the system to do something interesting instead.

See, I am a pretty creative person. And if the game wants me to do something stupid and boring, I am going to go play a different game. Or just do cooperative storytelling with no game system at all. There's no reason for me to use the 4e D&D skill challenge system unless it's actually preferable to not using it. And since your defense of it is to simply not actually use the system, why not go all the way and just not use 4e at all?

What does 4e bring to the table that wouldn't be better with no fixed system at all? Every game has to justify its rules against Cops and Robbers, and frankly 4e just doesn't measure up.

-Username17

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Lols. Sounds like he's being welcomed to the Den for real. Also, 4.Fail Paladins do piddly shit damage, even by 4.Fail standards.

Care to back this up?

The Paladin does a maximum of 3W damage until 15th level with a new daily. For most of his career, a paladin can do 2W+Str or 2W+Str+Wis

Now, let's assume that this guy is going to hit so that we can pump as much damage out of this guy as we can. We'll take Dwarf for +2 Wis +2 Con and Dwarven Weapon Training for Stats of:

Str: 16
Con: 13
Dex: 13
Int: 8
Wis: 18
Cha: 10

So for Feats, it'd go like this:

1: Dwarven Weapon Training +2 Damage axes and hammers (Maul 2d6)
2: Weapon Focus Hammers +1 Damage Hammers
4: Power Attack -2 Hit, +3 Damage
6: Powerful Charge +2 Damage on a Charge

We'll say he uses a Great Maul for 2d6 Damage.

So with Holy Strike he's going to do: 2d6 (weapon) + 3 (Str) +2 (Feat 1) +2 (Feat 2) + 3 (Feat 3) + 2 (Feat 4) + (4 Wis)= 23 damage avg. however he only gets a +5 to attack (+3 Str +3 level -2 Power Attack +1 Charge)

Let's compare that to a Dwarven Ranger

Str: 18
Con: 12
Dex: 14
Int: 8
Wis: 11
Cha: 10

1: Dwarven Weapon Training +2 Damage axes and hammers (Warhammer d10)
2: Weapon Focus Hammers +1 Damage Hammers
4: Two-Weapon Fighting (+1 damage while wielding 2 weapons)
6: Lethal Hunter (d8s instead of d6s for Hunter's Quarry)

We'll say he uses 2 Warhamers for 1d10 each

So with Twin Strike and assuming both attacks hit, he's going to do: (5.5 (weapon) +2 (Feat 1) +1 (Feat 2) +1 (Feat 3))*2 + 4.5 Hunter's Quarry

So the average damage is 23.5. This dwarf receives a +7 to hit with each attack.

So for the Paladin to be comparable with the Ranger, he has to sacrifice his chances of hitting and be charging whereas the Ranger does not need to make this sacrifice.

Now, this is just a baseline comparison. The Paladin never really any gets better. The epitome of Paladin is multiclassing into Fighter to get the Pit Fighter Paragon Path so that he can do x2 Wisdom damage with Holy Strike.

The Archer Ranger can go into pitfighter too and get a Wisdom mod to all ranged attacks. The Melee Ranger can go Cascade of Blades and do a ton of damage. The wizard can go blood mage and suddenly significantly shorten encounters. He can also just cast sleep and coup de grace and do more damage than a Paladin. Anyway, I'm not the expert on abuses, the CharOp forum on the Wizards Board is very good for that.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Frank, as someone who has played several 4E games and is still playing one, I do have to say that just having an appeal to authority is a feature that keeps 4E above Cops and Robbers.

If you make up a lot of things out of whole cloth then you might as well be trying to herd cats. However, if you pretend to use one system when you're really not you can still keep people engaged because you can claim that you're using a respected system like Dungeons and Dragons and have people go along with you. Because, hey, it's Dungeons and Dragons.

Or if that's too hard to understand, how's this for an example. I have a friend who loves DMing. He is genuinely a good DM, giving people lots of things to do and immersing us in the setting and giving us a lot of leeway in the plot. He likes Skill Challenges, though, even though I'm almost positive that he's not aware of how busted a system it is. When I or other people bring it up I get the same schpeel of 'you gotta massage the numbers a little bit' or 'don't use it right out of the book' and he changes it to something sort of workable. That is, he makes individual failure instead of group failure, makes participation mandatory, and allows a lot more leeway with skills.

Now imagine if we were playing 3E and someone brought up this idea. They would get stared at/laughed at for bringing this up. But since Dungeons and Dragons came up with the idea and it's in all honesty a really good one in theory, then groups can invent a system that kinda-sorta resembles it, call it a Skill Challenge, and have people go 'oh, it's a good system'.

[Hotpants Joe]

The thing where Hasbro counts all their 4e orders up to the release date as sales for the release week, causing them to get a spike in sales that puts them on the WSJ best sellers list for one week (but not the NYT bestsellers list because it is calculated differently) is not really very interesting to me. I'm much more interested in sustained sales, and numbers for that are incredibly hard to come by.

http://www.goodman-games.com/forums/vie ... 324#p25324

Is Joe Goodman's take on it valid enough for you?

But mostly HPJ, you are behaving stupidly and you should feel stupid. You just said that behaving in the manner dictated by the rules to be effective was bad. Or more accurately, you said that if the game presents options that are not interesting that it is the player's responsibility to ignore those options and use their powers of make believe to do something interesting instead. And while I can sort of agree with that, what I can't agree with is the notion that there is any advantage to pretending that I am playing system X when actually I'm just ignoring the system to do something interesting instead.

See, I am a pretty creative person. And if the game wants me to do something stupid and boring, I am going to go play a different game. Or just do cooperative storytelling with no game system at all. There's no reason for me to use the 4e D&D skill challenge system unless it's actually preferable to not using it. And since your defense of it is to simply not actually use the system, why not go all the way and just not use 4e at all?

My defense is not to simply not use it, it's to modify obviously broken aspects of it. Which is what experienced DMs do in any system. I've looked at the math, and I'll admit that I only have experience playing from levels 1-11ish so far. But having four party members out of five aiding the fifth at every point of the skill challenge doesn't sound feasible at all. If there's an arcana skill check, how is the magically-inept fighter supposed to aid the wizard without being horribly cheesy?

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-ed ... ables.html

If you look at table 2 of this analysis that Bill posted earlier, you'll see that the columns with crazy-high rates of success are based upon the assumption that 4 members of a party always aid the 5th in any skill check. Frankly that's a bad assumption. Just because the rules say you can do it doesn't mean that you should always, without question, allow it. My suggestion here is to limit the amount of aiding that can go on, and to only allow it when it sounds feasible. The ICGS column looks close to what my typical party win rate is. It is sometimes slightly better, and sometimes slightly worse.

As for the "why not just not use 4e?" question: There are enough good things about 4e to use it despite flaws that can be easily adjusted. Which I'll expand on a little bit here,

What does 4e bring to the table that wouldn't be better with no fixed system at all? Every game has to justify its rules against Cops and Robbers, and frankly 4e just doesn't measure up.

-Username17

-Monsters with all relevant skills, abilities and stats right there in the block. They're subdivided into 'roles', too, which makes it easy enough to set up encounters with variation. Freeing up DM prep time == good thing.
- Healing Surges. The wording isn't the best but it stops healing from becoming totally trivialized like it was in 3e. You actually feel threatened and resource management becomes important.
- Tactical combat. Other systems I have played have suffered badly in this department.

I just don't buy it when people take extreme examples of brokenness to say that 4e totally fails. Skill challenges are broken because DMs don't know any better than to allow players to get away with whatever they want? 4e is broken!!! You can get a vorpal enchantment on a +6 weapon at level 30 and stack a brutal effect on it for an encounter to deal infinite damage? 4e is broken!!! It's especially bad when those same people tout 3.5 as being better, when there were so many more broken parts of that system than all of the broken claims of 4e that I've seen so far.

[Hotpants Joe]

Paladin stuff

Thanks. Actually, when I look at an optimized damage-dealing paladin I tend to look at a shifter using a fullblade. The dwarven weapon training based paladin looks okay, but he also has 16 Str in his primary attack stat and is using a +2 proficiency weapon so it looks like you went all-out for a damage build without considering hit. I'll lay out a better version when I have more time.

Also, a paladin isn't going to measure up to a striker in terms of damage. That's part of the price they pay for being a "defender" that can also lay on hands and give allies bonuses. Strikers are more singularly focused on ruining people's days. But paladins can definitely do respectable damage even if their mark effect is a bit on the weak side. This is even more true when you have undead opponents.

[mean_liar]

4e's obsession with Focusing Fire needs to go, and I hope the next iteration of DnD has something akin to 3e Shadowrun's "never get hurt or you're fucked" health mechanics.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Thanks. Actually, when I look at an optimized damage-dealing paladin I tend to look at a shifter using a fullblade. The dwarven weapon training based paladin looks okay, but he also has 16 Str in his primary attack stat and is using a +2 proficiency weapon so it looks like you went all-out for a damage build without considering hit. I'll lay out a better version when I have more time.

Also, a paladin isn't going to measure up to a striker in terms of damage. That's part of the price they pay for being a "defender" that can also lay on hands and give allies bonuses. Strikers are more singularly focused on ruining people's days. But paladins can definitely do respectable damage even if their mark effect is a bit on the weak side. This is even more true when you have undead opponents.

Whoa, we're using material from other books, now?

That's a really bad idea, since it makes the paladin look like the waste of space that they are.

[Hotpants Joe]

4e's obsession with Focusing Fire needs to go, and I hope the next iteration of DnD has something akin to 3e Shadowrun's "never get hurt or you're fucked" health mechanics.

I've been meaning to touch on this in more detail, but I don't agree with the "focus fire is always best" notion. Especially when we're talking about things from the monsters' perspective. Fighters do sick amounts of damage if they're ignored, and if they actually do manage to get enemies to pile on them, they're doing their job.

Having nothing but ranged classes and doing nothing but focus firing is silly too, because what happens when heavy melee gets in your face? And besides, people should play what they feel like playing in 4e rather than what they think will win the most. Variety is good in 4e.

[Hotpants Joe]

Whoa, we're using material from other books, now?

That's a really bad idea, since it makes the paladin look like the waste of space that they are.

Everything WotC has released is considered Core.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Hotpants, I was just comparing a low level Melee Paladin to a low level Melee Ranger. I didn't pull any cheese, and I still noted that the Ranger did more damage.

Also, Defender, Controller, Leader, and Striker do not exist. Your job is always to kill monsters.

And besides, people should play what they feel like playing in 4e rather than what they think will win the most. Variety is good in 4e.

That's not an Argument Hotpants, that's changing the Goalpost. The discussion is about the most effective tactics not about what people feel like playing without rules knowledge.


If you don't believe me about Focused Fire, Please

1. Decide on a Level
2. Make up a Standard Encounter
3. Choose a Locale

One of us will make up a party to fight your Encounter, and we can prove the supreme effectiveness of Focused Fire.

Thanks,
Bill

[Lago PARANOIA]

The 'everything WotC is core' is just a marketing trick for powergamers and fanboys, Joe. Don't fall for it.

[mean_liar]

Because I can I actually came up with a spreadsheet that calculates your party's target every round for you based on their mean damage values.

In v3.5 you wouldn't have to do this because things drop so much quicker; in 4e, if you're spreading the attacks around you're really screwing yourself.

I would echo Bill's call for an example fight, Hotpants. Dogpiling is pretty much the best way to go if you're simply not going to have the whole party mount up and kite.

[Hotpants Joe]

Also, Defender, Controller, Leader, and Striker do not exist. Your job is always to kill monsters.

Different classes have different abilities and different core abilities based on whatever their classification is (defenders have marks with immediate threats for disobeying them, leaders have encounter heals, strikers have additional damage dealing). Call it whatever you want. My argument wasn't that a paladin stands up to the likes of a striker in terms of damage output. It's that they can put out respectable damage and be "a smiting paladin", which is what PR originally claimed they couldn't be. At this point we'll be arguing semantics but I never once said that paladins beat strikers.

That's not an Argument Hotpants, that's changing the Goalpost. The discussion is about the most effective tactics not about what people feel like playing without rules knowledge.

Sorry, but it's not really goalposting because we never actually established that the discussion was mechanics/setting-based/roleplaying-agnostic. You simply said, "instead of playing a varied group, why not go all range and just focus fire?". I'm presenting one reason a group wouldn't do that.

Now that you've established what you're trying to argue, I'll respond on that level.

[Roy]

Paladin stuff

Thanks. Actually, when I look at an optimized damage-dealing paladin I tend to look at a shifter using a fullblade. The dwarven weapon training based paladin looks okay, but he also has 16 Str in his primary attack stat and is using a +2 proficiency weapon so it looks like you went all-out for a damage build without considering hit. I'll lay out a better version when I have more time.

Also, a paladin isn't going to measure up to a striker in terms of damage. That's part of the price they pay for being a "defender" that can also lay on hands and give allies bonuses. Strikers are more singularly focused on ruining people's days. But paladins can definitely do respectable damage even if their mark effect is a bit on the weak side. This is even more true when you have undead opponents.

I didn't say that. Someone else beat me to it.

To the other thing: Fighters. Just. Fighters.

Now on 4.Fail in general: Several people have already said basically the same thing I did. Skill challenges are literally everything outside of combat, and the fact you're having to redesign that entire fucking section of the game just to make it work is making our point for us.

And the categories are so broad there are only two. The other is 'combat' since 'everything outside of combat' is Exactly What It Says On The Tin.

Except that oh wait, this is the game that breaks over stupid fucking shit like horse archers, has about... 20% of the mobs doing something disproportionate on the grounds they have actual abilities and no one else does (see: black dragons, and many others) so they basically auto win, and then there's the long ass fucking grind where you say a phrase as long or longer than 'I full attack' as many or more times than you would say that, and you don't have the option of playing something that actually gets to do different stuff. You're forced to grind on the MOBs.

So that's combat = Fail and everything outside of combat = Fail.

What the fuck is left?

Now I could say all that every single time, but everyone in the know will get it immediately just by calling the system 4.Fail, and even those unfamiliar with the details can employ kindergarten level reading comprehension skills to determine that something made from 4.0 + Fail is a statement that 4.0 is terrible in every possible way.

Also, there are a long list of parallels that can be drawn between the 4.0 fanatics and religious fanatics. This is not a good thing. Most notably, both require active self delusion to maintain.

As for this focusing fire bit... that's nothing new. Like, at all. Every system that uses Critical Existence Failure HP is all about the focus fire. And that's every D&D version ever, as well as most video game RPGs and some other stuff. Granted, there's a bit more of a focus on it because you do more grinding on the MOB in 4.Fail, but the concept itself is not new. So you could attack 4.Fail for not fixing it, but not for doing it in the first place. That's one of the few grounds for attacking it that isn't valid.

And from the perspective of the MOBs, you want them spreading their attacks as much as possible because you cannot focus large amounts of healing into one space. If they are gangbanging anyone, that person will die like it was 3.5 (except in 4.Fail, they don't have any tools to counter this sudden Rocket Launcher Tag spike). Doesn't matter who.

See, your fighting ability? Yeah still intact. So no one has any incentive not to either just beat on it till it dies, or use stunlocks for the win.

If you have nothing but ranged classes, congrats you win 4.Fail. MOBs can't even touch you, so talking about a situation that doesn't happen is meaningless. Very few MOBs have any ranged attacks at all, and fewer still have any of any consequence. And oh yeah, melee and ranged tactics are nonsynergestic or even anti synergestic.

4.Fail is not the system for playing what you like, nor is it the system for variety so discussing the merits of variety is irrelevant. It's the system where you play the right race with the right class and the right powers, then go join the other clones to grind on MOBs for farming purposes. Sound like an MMO? That's because they tried to make one without the things that make an MMO appeal... like ya know, graphics and doing the math for you. It is not the system for actually being creative. Hell, even their skill challenged, borkedness aside are like the cop out 'roleplaying' that goes into video games because devs can't predict what players will do if truly given a choice.

[Username17]

Is Joe Goodman's take on it valid enough for you?

Yes. He admits point blank that 4e is not selling as well as 3e did. He also makes claim to the fact that because there is a much smaller group of GSL publishers than there were OGL publishers that he personally will stay in business making 3rd party materials for 4e. Good for him. But Hasbro just spent a huge pile of money on multi-media marketing for a brand new edition. If sales are, as Joe Goodman claims, in any way comparable to 3.5 sales from 2007, that's a huge disaster from Hasbro's perspective. Joe Goodman doesn't buy advertising space in major DC comics titles, he doesn't need to see sales go up that high. He has limited print runs, and he maximizes his profits if those print runs sell out. Hasbro is on a different economic model, and having sales continue on as normal is not acceptable to them.

As to the skill challenge system: you've as much as admitted that it is unusable. My question for you is this: If Bill Salvicsek doesn't give enough of a fuck about me to release rules that are even cursorily usable for the role playing end of his miniatures combat game, why should I even treat his game as an RPG? I can role play the characters in Mordheim or Necromunda, and those are better miniatures combat games.

-Username17

[mean_liar]

I think Bill was making the point that combined arms in 4e isn't really that large of an advantage after you've included your Warlord. After that it's pretty much "whatever goes" as long as you have some kind of AoE.

And from what I've seen of 4e mechanics the few times I've played you can effectively dogpile with melee and your standard mix of party talents - no need to make things exclusively ranged.

[Hotpants Joe]

Except that oh wait, this is the game that breaks over stupid fucking shit like horse archers, has about... 20% of the mobs doing something disproportionate on the grounds they have actual abilities and no one else does (see: black dragons, and many others) so they basically auto win, and then there's the long ass fucking grind where you say a phrase as long or longer than 'I full attack' as many or more times than you would say that, and you don't have the option of playing something that actually gets to do different stuff. You're forced to grind on the MOBs.

If you have nothing but ranged classes, congrats you win 4.Fail. MOBs can't even touch you, so talking about a situation that doesn't happen is meaningless. Very few MOBs have any ranged attacks at all, and fewer still have any of any consequence. And oh yeah, melee and ranged tactics are nonsynergestic or even anti synergestic.

Are we assuming that every fight is an endlessly open field? Also, how is this "ranged always wins" business any different from 3e? If we totally disregard roleplaying and people play just to win, I'm pretty sure having highly mobile sniper experts on a wide open field battle was the way to go in 3e, too.

I guess I don't really care. I'll probably never play in a 4e game where everyone picks optimized archer rangers because that would be boring as hell. You pointing out that having a fully optimized ranged party beats all other tactics available (assuming it's true) doesn't make 4e a failure. Other party compositions are totally viable. How does this make 4e suck?

So that's combat = Fail and everything outside of combat = Fail.

Did I not just explain how SCs can be easily adjusted to not be fail?

4.Fail is not the system for playing what you like, nor is it the system for variety so discussing the merits of variety is irrelevant. It's the system where you play the right race with the right class and the right powers, then go join the other clones to grind on MOBs for farming purposes.

Because 3e wasn't a combat-centric game where you gain experience by overcoming traps and killing monsters? Because D&D hasn't always been this way? Please. 4e just does it a little differently.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Hotpants,

You didn't respond in entirety to Roy's last post. And truthfully speaking I'd like to move away from this 3rd vs. 4th mentality. However, if you're going to go on that point, it is even more important in 4th edition than in 3rd edition to have good stats and be the right race.

Peace,
Bill

[Hotpants Joe]

Yes. He admits point blank that 4e is not selling as well as 3e did. He also makes claim to the fact that because there is a much smaller group of GSL publishers than there were OGL publishers that he personally will stay in business making 3rd party materials for 4e. Good for him. But Hasbro just spent a huge pile of money on multi-media marketing for a brand new edition. If sales are, as Joe Goodman claims, in any way comparable to 3.5 sales from 2007, that's a huge disaster from Hasbro's perspective. Joe Goodman doesn't buy advertising space in major DC comics titles, he doesn't need to see sales go up that high. He has limited print runs, and he maximizes his profits if those print runs sell out. Hasbro is on a different economic model, and having sales continue on as normal is not acceptable to them.

Do you have numbers to back this up at all? I don't see where you're getting that 4e is a financial failure from Hasbro's perspective because it isn't selling as well as 3e was at its peak in 2001. 4e is still selling like mad.

As to the skill challenge system: you've as much as admitted that it is unusable.

No, I said it's foolish and a sign of an inexperienced DM to use it in an obviously broken way, i.e. letting players stack aids regardless of the skill use in question, or letting one PC solve the entire 12-point skill challenge with a single skill. You haven't even addressed my argument there. Skill challenges are more than useable.

My question for you is this: If Bill Salvicsek doesn't give enough of a fuck about me to release rules that are even cursorily usable for the role playing end of his miniatures combat game, why should I even treat his game as an RPG? I can role play the characters in Mordheim or Necromunda, and those are better miniatures combat games.

-Username17

I really don't like repeating myself. There are enough good things about 4e to the point that a minor adjustment to one core mechanic shouldn't sour the deal. In other words, hypothetically, IF there are enough good things about 4th Edition in your eyes to run it despite a flaw in a core mechanic that can be easily adjusted, and you realize this, because, you are an experienced DM, then 4e is still worth playing. If you aren't interested in running a system then the obvious answer is: don't.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Are we assuming that every fight is an endlessly open field? Also, how is this "ranged always wins" business any different from 3e? If we totally disregard roleplaying and people play just to win, I'm pretty sure having highly mobile sniper experts on a wide open field battle was the way to go in 3e, too.

I guess I don't really care. I'll probably never play in a 4e game where everyone picks optimized archer rangers because that would be boring as hell. You pointing out that having a fully optimized ranged party beats all other tactics available (assuming it's true) doesn't make 4e a failure. Other party compositions are totally viable. How does this make 4e suck?

There was a thread earlier where someone listed the number of monsters in the monsters that had ranged capability. I remember it being very low. Archer Rangers don't automatically win every encounter because there are some creatures that have ok ranged attacks. However, most monsters do not. And most encounters the Archer Ranger will beat easily.

I don't sese why having an effective team of Archer Rangers is anti-roleplaying. The Navy Seals play to win, and so should serious adventurers.

Yes, not every battle would be in an open field. But, if I can win every open field battle, I consider that very good.

[Hotpants Joe]

Hotpants,

You didn't respond in entirety to Roy's last post. And truthfully speaking I'd like to move away from this 3rd vs. 4th mentality. However, if you're going to go on that point, it is even more important in 4th edition than in 3rd edition to have good stats and be the right race.

Peace,
Bill

I might have, but, some of the content was derogatory and not really worth responding to. And give me a break. I'm debating with 3 people here. I haven't even fully responded to all of your posts. People here haven't always fully responded to mine, either.