Genuine Improvements of 4E

[RandomCasualty2]

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.

Righteous brand is similar to True Strike in 3.5, And I don't consider that so much RNG pushing as simply a combo where someone else casts true strike on you and you get to pretty much autohit or nearly autohit.

Granted 4E does break at epic, but the level of RNG breakage is still less than 3.5 epic, which was honestly a fucking joke.

Righteous brand a tlevel 1-10 is actually fine. It's a +4/+5 bonus.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Also, the character builder is one of the best software products I've ever seen and people genuinely enjoy it. Granted, there's no reason why this couldn't have been made for 3rd Edition, but if nothing else this is a great level of support from WotC.

[koz]

Righteous brand is similar to True Strike in 3.5, And I don't consider that so much RNG pushing as simply a combo where someone else casts true strike on you and you get to pretty much autohit or nearly autohit.

Granted 4E does break at epic, but the level of RNG breakage is still less than 3.5 epic, which was honestly a fucking joke.

Righteous brand a tlevel 1-10 is actually fine. It's a +4/+5 bonus.

See, this is where you're wrong, because true strike actually consumes resources and stops you doing damage to the opponent with your standard action, or heck, affecting them at all. Righteous Brand does neither.

That is not the only example of this I can cite. The warlord power that lets you add Int to damage from another ally's basic attack, which doesn't differ significantly from a lot of at-wills, is yet another. And for the record, a bonus of +4-5 at level 1 is skullfucking the RNG, since it doubled the benefit you would get from even the highest level of stat available to you.

Please stop your constant streak of comparing two things which are nothing alike.

[Ice9]

The warlord power that lets you add Int to damage from another ally's basic attack, which doesn't differ significantly from a lot of at-wills, is yet another.

Damage bonuses don't even affect the RNG. It's effectively just an at-will that does 1[W]+Str+Int, which isn't skullfucking anything - it isn't even as good as Cloud of Daggers.

And for the record, a bonus of +4-5 at level 1 is skullfucking the RNG, since it doubled the benefit you would get from even the highest level of stat available to you.

Is a bonus of +5 skullfucking the RNG? Personally, I don't think so, but maybe it is. What's true either way though, is that it isn't any worse at level 1 than it would be at level 30. A bonus of +5 is a 25% better chance to hit, no matter what level you get it at, and it isn't any stronger for someone with an attack bonus of +1 than for someone with an attack bonus of +100.

Also, I believe the title of this thread is "Genuine Improvements of 4E", not "Things that are absolutely perfect about 4E". 4E may still screw up the RNG, but it does so far less than 3E. That's an improvement, by definition.

[koz]

Point taken about the warlord thing, Ice9. I clearly wasn't thinking straight.

As far as the RNG screwage goes, actually, the bonus DOESN'T stay at +5. It goes up along with your Strength, so the bonus actually skullfucks the RNG more. Additionally, yes, that much of a gain IS skullfucking the RNG, since it provides a diversity of only 20 numbers, and you're adding 5, to say nothing of what the guy performing the attack boosted by Righteous Brand also gets.

Admittedly, this is negative, but RC2 claiming this as something positive is horribly misguided. There ARE positive things about 4E, but RNG virginity is hardly it.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

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.

Actually, they have uncoupled it from the 24-hour day.

Once per Day: After you finish an extended rest, you have to wait 12 hours before you can begin another one.

So actually, you can end up finishing a second extended rest at the end of a 24-hour period.

[DeadlyReed]

I don't know about the Character Builder. HERO has had HERO Designer (an awesome creation utility) for years. The fact that they've only achieved an quality character generator now is more depressing than something to be excited about.

[Voss]

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.

Actually, they have uncoupled it from the 24-hour day.

Once per Day: After you finish an extended rest, you have to wait 12 hours before you can begin another one.

So actually, you can end up finishing a second extended rest at the end of a 24-hour period.

Meh. If you sit down and work that out, you're really dealing with a day. 6 hours rest, 12 hours active, 6 hours rest. You can set up the cycle so that every couple days you have one day where you're getting your daily powers 3 whole times in one 24 hour period. But that first period of activity is going to largely lie in the previous day, and those 9-10 hours of adventuring are problem going to be enough to burn through your dailies and surges. Then you're back on the twice per day train for several days.

And of course, is just amusing that the title the 'wait twelve hours' entry as Once per Day

It is a bit weird, and isn't explicitly or exactly once per day, but its still very much revolving around it.

[violence in the media]

Speaking of good things, weren't the disease rules supposed to be an improvement? Anyone with more knowledge of them care to comment?

[MartinHarper]

Righteous Brand is still a smaller bonus than, say, optimised Inspire Courage, even if it gets up to +8/+9 at level 30.

[Roy]

Righteous Brand is still a smaller bonus than, say, optimised Inspire Courage, even if it gets up to +8/+9 at level 30.

Of course, since bonuses from other sources in 4.Fail are much harder to come by, each + means more there. And vice versa.

[RandomCasualty2]

Admittedly, this is negative, but RC2 claiming this as something positive is horribly misguided. There ARE positive things about 4E, but RNG virginity is hardly it.

In 4E, you need powers from other teammates to push you off the RNG. But you're talking epic 4E.

Lets talk epic 3E.

Most monsters are already off the fucking RNG, no buffs required. You literally cannot win a grappling contest at all without a ring of freedom of movement. Skills like hide and move silent are so far gone that even a +20 bonus to a guy who is untrained probably wouldn't even put him back on the RNG.

Sinister, I'm not claiming it's perfect, but 4E is definitely an improvement over 3E, where you can literally add +20 to an epic characters spot and listen and still not be able to detect an epic rogue moving silently and hiding. And that's not because the rogue is using some temporary buff or some shit. It's because it's his basic bonus.

[Fuchs]

I'd think that having an epic rogue being undetectable by someone not trained in listen or spot would be a feature, not a fault. Maybe I have another definition of epic, but "has a better chance than even to remain hidden by others" is not what I call epic.

[MartinHarper]

I'd think that having an epic rogue being undetectable by someone not trained in listen or spot would be a feature, not a fault.

4e has that feature too. The Epic Rogue is undetectable by the commoner. The difference is that an Epic Fighter has a chance of hearing the Epic Rogue.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Is this another case of 'non-spellcasters can't have nice things?'

Speaking of good things, weren't the disease rules supposed to be an improvement? Anyone with more knowledge of them care to comment?

The disease rules are indeed an improvement. They have quite a bit more variety to them than in 3E and also increase immersion in the game world by not completely crippling everyone it comes across in three days. See, every disease has a graduated track now. When you're first infected you get a minor effect like a fever, akin to a -2 penalty to attack rolls or losing a healing surge or something like that. If you ignore it or fail an Endurance skill check you advance to the next stage of illness. If you keep failing enough you enter the final stage of disease which has some permanently debilitating effect, which can only be removed with the appropriate ritual.

Diseases really aren't for PCs. They're easy to shake off unless you're at low level. They're more for NPCs and they add quite a bit of flavor to the game. I also enjoy the flavor of PCs always taking care to inspect their wounds and perform some preventative disease care.

I don't know about the Character Builder. HERO has had HERO Designer (an awesome creation utility) for years. The fact that they've only achieved an quality character generator now is more depressing than something to be excited about.

This isn't a thread about shit D&D was supposed to have always had and now that they did, whoop-tee-doo, this is about genuine improvements to the game.

3E had a creation utility, too, but it reeked of fermented dead babies--4E actually having a fairly user-friendly (if memory hogging) one that they update frequently is an improvement like it or not.

[DeadlyReed]

I'm looking at the big picture here. They literally spent millions on D&DI and a functional character generator is all they have to show for it. I doubt HERO Games needed to sink that much money and time to get thier utility. To say it's an improvement would be flattering imcompetence.

[Psychic Robot]

To spare you Lago's wrath:

If we were looking at the big picture, we'd just say "4e sucks" and leave it at that. This is a thread to talk about 4e's improvements--even those that are imperfectly implemented. The 4e character creator is a useful tool that will probably help a lot of newbies become accustomed to the game. (On the other hand, it might make them rely too much on the machine rather than knowing the rules, but we're thinking happy thoughts in this thread.)

[Ice9]

One thing though - I wouldn't compare 4E's Epic tier to 3E's Epic. In terms of character progress, it's more like levels 14-20, and in terms of what power level it represents, it's more like levels 10-15. Now that said, 4E Epic levels are still probably more on the RNG than 3E high levels.

[Amra]

Well yes, but 3E high levels fundamentally didn't make any reference to the RNG most of the time. Epic levels in particular could have more-or-less dispensed with the d20 rolls. Once you've got base numbers that are orders of magnitude greater than the RNG can supply, it's more than faintly ridiculous to be using it. When you're looking at Spellcraft DC's of 100+ for Epic spellcasting, you've pretty much either cheesed out your score so you'll automatically pass or you're nowhere friggin' near!

[Psychic Robot]

One genuine improvement of 4e: showing the monster's stat modifiers next to the ability scores.

[Amra]

PR... where does that second quote in your sig come from? That's some quality fever-pitch ranting, right there!

[Psychic Robot]

/tg/. Both are from /tg/, actually. There is much lulz to be had by reading edition war threads.

[Orion]

It's a stupid and offensive quote, while we're discussing it, which makes it very difficult everytime I see it to take you seriously, not least because it assumes that all gamers are male.

[Fuchs]

I don't get why the quote assumes that gamers are all males - apart from the homophobic tone that shines through.

[Orion]

I was being slightly facetious - obviously the more obvious offensiveness is the completely unnecessary use of "gay" as a pejorative. But there's also the question of why it would be gay for the players to be fucked up the ass by horses. That only holds if the players are men.