Genuine Improvements of 4E

[Lago PARANOIA]

4th Edition uncoupled the definition of the 'day' in daily power from the solar cycle, which is an enormous improvement. This caused massive amounts of confusion in 3E, where I have seriously have had some DMs that would let my wizard use spell slots twice in the same 24 hour period and others that wouldn't.

4E also went back to using 3.0E's weapon size system instead of 3.5E's fucked up one. That is also an improvement.

Non-casters can now use rituals. Rituals still take way too much time and way too much money and rituals still don't do anything interesting but at least it gives non-casters the opportunity to affect the plot.

Players are slightly more mobile in 4th Edition combat than in 3rd. Not a huge amount more, but still.

Grappling rules are a lot easier to use. Considering that they're still confusing as hell and introduce some holes into the system even now, that goes more to show how bad the previous rules were.

Small characters are screwed quite a tiny bit less in this edition than the previous one. The weapon size thing really, really hurts them if they want to be a member of a certain class (such as a ranger). A cynic might say that this is because they neutered the special manuever system of the previous edition so they have less places to put the screws, but considering that small characters don't get as big of a penalty to grapple or bullrushing as they used to I'd say it's a wash.

[sake]

Hmm... well, I'm actually considering playing a Bard (a sarcastic, insult tossing arcane archer type guy to be exact), that would never happen in 3E.

I still really think Rituals were a good concept, if flawed execution.

They seem to be more willing to add races that aren't just slight redecos of the Tolkien standards.

For that matter the game doesn't punish you for wanting to play monster races, either.

[Judging__Eagle]

Hmm... well, I'm actually considering playing a Bard (a sarcastic, insult tossing arcane archer type guy to be exact), that would never happen in 3E.

You mean a Ranger with witty lines?

Bards want actual songs or poems to be sung or told; or interesting dances performed; or musical numbers played. If he ryhmes, or raps when he insults, that's fine as well. However a bard that relies solely on insults isn't much of a bard.

Or will this all be done descriptively?

"I sing a saucy tune about the Baron and an unknown woman who was seen leaving his castle last fortnight. To embarrass him, and give my allies a bonus to their dice rolls."

[angelfromanotherpin]

However a bard that relies solely on insults isn't much of a bard.

In actual Celtic myth, there are bards who are known for their insults. Insults so harsh that they cause sickness effects and death. Insult-based bards are a long and well-established tradition.

[sake]

Bards want actual songs or poems to be sung or told; or interesting dances performed; or musical numbers played. If he ryhmes, or raps when he insults, that's fine as well. However a bard that relies solely on insults isn't much of a bard.

Or will this all be done descriptively?

I'm ashamed to say I was actually considering something akin to a high fantasy version of the comic book character Deadpool when I saw that the 4E bard had ranged/melee weapon powers and insult powers that cause literal psychic damage and debuffs.

They seemed have gone away from the classical bard image of a mage- thief who plays a flute in the back row of the party in favor of something that's a mix of arcane archer, sonic/psychic based blaster, bladesinger, and Guybrush Threepwood. That sounds like a horrible combination of crap, I know, but it's nice to see a 4E class that actually gives you a wide variety of ways to do stuff... even if it's just different flavored ways to do damage to something.

[Josh_Kablack]

1. Actually paying attention to the RNG. (At least for the first couple books if you ignore skill bonuses)

2. Putting every class on a system with Powers, rather than the half-assed division between Skill/Feat/Spell - centered classes. (granted the implementation could be much better, but at least the equivalencies are more obvious )

3. Having PCs who can tank above 7th level. In 3e, your buffed armor cleric got to be nigh immune right up until the first real giant or dire bear gets to kill you in one round if you ever stand still to take a full attack from it.

4. Allowing DMs to run campaigns based on [insert token fantasy epic] with high-level characters in which the campaign world actually mimics the setting instead of having PCs rewrite the setting as soon as they figure out how their class abilities actually work. (Granted, those DMs are morons for not reading enough of the system to realize what levels actually mean in 3.x. hint: 20th level is Santa Claus if your PCs don't optimize well )

[CatharzGodfoot]

4th Edition uncoupled the definition of the 'day' in daily power from the solar cycle, which is an enormous improvement. This caused massive amounts of confusion in 3E, where I have seriously have had some DMs that would let my wizard use spell slots twice in the same 24 hour period and others that wouldn't.

How do daily powers work in 4e?

[Lago PARANOIA]

You get your daily powers back after taking an extended rest, which usually but not always requires 6 hours of doing nothing but... resting. Not necessarily sleep, but still.

[CatharzGodfoot]

You get your daily powers back after taking an extended rest, which usually but not always requires 6 hours of doing nothing but... resting. Not necessarily sleep, but still.

In that case, I think that a change it terminology would have been beneficial. A "daily" power really should have something to do with actual days. I wonder if "limited" or "major" would have caused too much confusion with "encounter" powers.

I agree that that is a better system than the 3e one. When you have to deal with all of the different methods (wizard/sorcerer spell preparation as above, cleric spell preparation at sunrise, spell-like ability 1/24hrs)...ugh. I really do like the no rest/short rest/long rest paradigm, if you're going to go with use-limited abilities.

[RandomCasualty2]

I like the concept of milestones giving you something (of course they fucked that up by starting people wtih 1 action point by default and not letting you spend more than one in a combat).

The concept should have been that you could gain something by good resource management that you couldn't get via resting. That encourages people to conserve and not just go immediately to the 5 minute workday. Of course, 4E totally fucked that up.

If they'd done it right, I think it would have been a good concept.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

You get your daily powers back after taking an extended rest, which usually but not always requires 6 hours of doing nothing but... resting. Not necessarily sleep, but still.

I believe you can also only get the benefits of an extended rest once every 18 hours or so.

I like the concept of milestones giving you something (of course they fucked that up by starting people wtih 1 action point by default and not letting you spend more than one in a combat).

The concept should have been that you could gain something by good resource management that you couldn't get via resting. That encourages people to conserve and not just go immediately to the 5 minute workday. Of course, 4E totally fucked that up.

If they'd done it right, I think it would have been a good concept.

The problem is that they weren't really shooting for that goal. I wish I could dig up that link where Mearls basically said they introduced milestones as an artificial timetable for spending action points so you couldn't save them all for the BBEG. Once again, the 4e design paradigm is to put the PCs on narrow rails.

[Username17]

If they'd done it right, I think it would have been a good concept.

You know what I thought was really cool? The complete non-combat system that encouraged players to interact creatively with problems, utilize diverse abilities, and cooperate together to achieve goals in a comprehensible fashion where progress and assistance from each player was demonstrable over time and from the standpoint of hindsight after challenges had been overcome. Yeah, that was really fucking cool. I'm glad they tried to do that.

Or... wait a minute... Fuck that in the eye with a razor cock!

Look, if you set some lofty goals or throw out an interesting game mechanic idea and then you don't follow through then it doesn't count for shit! This is a thread for genuine improvements. Ideas that could have been cool but didn't go anywhere are not improvements. Hell, they aren't even genuine.

-Username17

[Aktariel]

offtopic:

Your tags. [url=http://tgdmb.com/faq. ... ]Fix them.

Correct Link

/asshole (me)

[RandomCasualty2]

The problem is that they weren't really shooting for that goal. I wish I could dig up that link where Mearls basically said they introduced milestones as an artificial timetable for spending action points so you couldn't save them all for the BBEG. Once again, the 4e design paradigm is to put the PCs on narrow rails.

Yeah, I think you're right about that. Mostly the extension of the action point mechanic was more something I came up with myself that spawned from reading 4E.

One of those "you almost had it right, you fuckers!" moments.

I mean 4E is really a game system with a lot of underdeveloped ideas, which may have been good if they put more thought into them and actually balanced them out. Though this is actually pretty standard for any Mearls product. 4E is slightly more polished than Iron Heroes, but not remarkably so. So many of the systems (like skill challenges) could have used a lot more refinement before ever seeing print. And while the basic set up isn't bad, most of the powers are just boring.

And that's the thing about 4E. As a set of theoretical design concepts, it's pretty good. As an actual game, it failed massively. I figure maybe by 5th or 6th edition (assuming they stay with the 4E paradigms), the game may actually be fun to play again.

[Voss]

You get your daily powers back after taking an extended rest, which usually but not always requires 6 hours of doing nothing but... resting. Not necessarily sleep, but still.

However, there are limits to the number of times you can do that in a 24 hour period (1), so they haven't uncoupled it from 'day' at all.



weapon size- eh. Except for small reach weapons, I prefer the 3.5 system.

Ritual use- if the system falls on its ass, it isn't actually an improvement
Fucking UMD was better than that clunker.

mobility- total preference issue. The game isn't necessarily improved in any way, it just 'feels' different.

grappling- easier, but a meaningless benefit thats always inferior to just stabbing someone in the face with Powahz.

small- eh. Whatever. Grappling screwed (almost) everyone once large creatures started doing it. Small PCs in 3rd got a lot more benefits than penalties, and no one was beaten with the 'you just can't play that class effectively' stick.

So, what are these genuine improvements again?

[Parthenon]

@ Aktariel : I don't think I remember seeing that page before: thats how to do lists. I got really irritated trying to work that one out.

[Thymos]

Am I the only one that doesn't like 4e power paradigm as a concept?

It just strikes me as... horrible. I mean, why does every class have to have the same types of powers in the same format?

Why restrict yourself like that when your not even playing a pvp game?

[RandomCasualty2]

So, what are these genuine improvements again?

The only genuine improvements I can think of:

• Monster and NPC design no longer done with the same system as PCs, and thus way way faster. Very much improved over 3E.
• Skill system is much easier to use and doesn't push people off the RNG anymore.
• Skill lists are are tighter and more generally useful (except for endurance. That skill just sucks), but finally the designers realize that it's okay to have one skill let you jump, swim and climb.
• Warrior types get maneuvers instead of just spamming standard attacks. (this was technically introduced in ToB, but 4E made it universal for all warrior types like rangers, paladins, etc.)
• RNG is much more stable and the frequency of getting pushed off of it are much lower.
• Extended resting just restores everything, no more worrying about how many CLWs you can cast in a day or how many charges it ticked off from your wand as pointless downtime.

The list of stuff that could have been improvements but instead sucked:

• Rituals: awesome idea, but very poor execution.
• Milestones
• Less ability to break the world: 4E unfortunately took it a step too far and just said that you can't affect the world at all.
• Unified power system: Nice concept, but powers were just too boring.
• Short Rest/Healing Surges: the concept was nice, being able to just take a short rest and have everyone regenerate by burning their own surges without worrying about ticking off charges of CLW wands and rolling armloads of d8s. The problem is that because cleric healing still works out of combat, you still get people rolling dice. It's just they are d6s now.
• the [W] damage concept: This was a nice idea to make a weapons base damage die matter at higher level. The problem is that it fails utterly because multiattacks add static damage sources more than once, which is more important than what an extra [W] gives you.

[MartinHarper]

I think whether things are improvements is very much a matter of opinion. A lot of the things I consider improvements are things that I know other folks here loathe. Still, the two key ones for me are:

1. Simpler. For players and DMs. I get asked how 3e Multi Shot works with Dual Shot and iterative attacks, and I don't care, and I don't want to care. Attacks are d20+x vs a defence, and there are only four defences. Alignment is no longer arbitrary. Even diagonal counting is one less thing to explain. It also needs less prep time and seems easier to homebrew.

2. Better balanced. There's less of an issue where good players have to avoid over-optimising in order to not piss off the DM or other players, or where half the content is banned for being overpowered, and much of the other half is so weak it's useless. There are still holes, notably kiting and orbizards. Still, it's hard to put a price on not having to listen to the Cleric whine that the Ranger is overpowered because it has an animal companion.

[Aktariel]

@ Aktariel : I don't think I remember seeing that page before: thats how to do lists. I got really irritated trying to work that one out.

You're welcome.

It's the hyperlink "BBCode" is ON in the lower left corner when you're making a post.

[DeadlyReed]

I know this is not a genuine improvement but I like the immortality sections of the various epic destinies and that they were put in writing.

[koz]

RC, I call serious bullshit.

Skill system is much easier to use and doesn't push people off the RNG anymore.

Umm, Intimidate much? Seriously, you don't even have to try hard to push that off the RNG.

In fact, your claim that RNG fuckage is rarer in 4E is shot dead in the ass the moment we consider Righteous Brand, which is an at-will.

As for someone's claim of it being simpler... 4E really isn't. A lot of the system requires really bullshit things happening that aren't supposed to (warlocks only being able to curse themselves, unless a good case is made for them not being able to see themselves, the regen off longtooth shifting being of a completely indeterminate length, whether multiclass warlocks get the benefits of their pact or not where powers are concerned... the list is long), and many other things in it make it hideously complicated (the amount of dumpster-diving you have to do is obscene with many characters, and even those that don't really need it still have to engage in collecting piles of shitty bonuses that add up to something decent). Seriously, the only reason it SEEMS simpler is because fewer books are out for it now. I already find it unpalatable to actually want to optimise it, due to the sheer amount of shit you have to wade through.

[sake]

Sigh... well we really tried to be positive for a while there...

There are still holes, notably kiting and orbizards.

Melee and ranged simply doesn't play well with each other. Nerfing kiting doesn't fix this, it just makes the all melee group the only viable option.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I do like how there are several ways to bypass traps now and each of them have a degree of success or failure to them. Also traps can also be used as encounter dressing and you get experience for overcoming them or just getting around them.

That's an improvement.

[koz]

Sigh... well we really tried to be positive for a while there...

I'm all for that, man, but at the same time, if I see bullshit, I call it. Claiming 4E is good because it doesn't fuck the RNG in the ass is pretty misguided at best.