4e mechanics compared to 3e mechanics

[OgreBattle]

Not discussing the classes that exist within the mechanics, only the bare mechanics themselves and their use.


So with that in mind, how do they compare? I know there's a lot of disappointment directed at 4e and how they did D&D classes. But is the criticism how they went about it, or is it with the very nature of the components to play the game?

Say the skill challenge, is the flaw in the format that skill challenges lay themselves out to be, or is the flaw inherent in the 4e skill system?

Comparable things would be...
3e- roll to hit vs AC, fort/ref/will as separate saves
4e- roll to hit vs AC/Fort/Ref/Will as defenses

3e- skills raised as points
4e- skills gained as proficiency

Grappling
3- subsystem varying with which .X it is
4- roll to hit vs fort/ref

etc.

[Josh_Kablack]

Dude, run a few searches and read prior go-rounds.

While you probably mean well, this sort of topic inevitably devolves into an edition war with a 0.000001% signal to noise ratio.

[rasmuswagner]

So with that in mind, how do they compare? I know there's a lot of disappointment directed at 4e and how they did D&D classes. But is the criticism how they went about it, or is it with the very nature of the components to play the game?

Comparable things would be...
3e- roll to hit vs AC, fort/ref/will as separate saves
4e- roll to hit vs AC/Fort/Ref/Will as defenses

I actually like that switch, and I think it works well. I've been using it myself occasionally, even before 4E.

[tussock]

3e- roll to hit vs AC, fort/ref/will as separate saves
4e- roll to hit vs AC/Fort/Ref/Will as defenses

I actually like that switch, and I think it works well. I've been using it myself occasionally, even before 4E.

Works well enough, aside from forcing one player to roll all the dice and do all the math for a while, rather than sharing it 'round on the busy effects. You know, player adds up all the d6's, DM rolls the monster ref saves.

Also, there's a lot to be said for giving a player a saving throw before you fuck their character. Feels more fair, which in turn lets you put some serious hurt on without causing bad feelings. Even if it is a bit slower.

Touch attacks should die in a fire though. Stupid rule, ref save works better, clutters everything up for monsters and PCs alike. Either a regular attack or a save, not both, and not two saves either: man up and pick one, Mr Game Designer.

[Swordslinger]

Say the skill challenge, is the flaw in the format that skill challenges lay themselves out to be, or is the flaw inherent in the 4e skill system?

First one. Skill challenges suck because it's just an exercise in dice rolling with no real decision making besides picking the skill with the biggest bonus.

[hogarth]

4E's doesn't have big problems because they rethought some of the rules (like you listed above); the biggest problem is that every power, magic item, etc. is as boring as hell. They're all tiny variations on adding/removing damage or moving people around. Repeat ad nauseam.

The second biggest problem is in the terrible implementation of some of their good ideas. Changing saving throws to defenses, eliminating skill points, etc. are fine changes, but the implementation of skill challenges (for instance) leaves a lot to be desired.

[RobbyPants]

The second biggest problem is in the terrible implementation of some of their good ideas. Changing saving throws to defenses, eliminating skill points, etc. are fine changes, but the implementation of skill challenges (for instance) leaves a lot to be desired.

Yeah, I like the idea of not picking up skill ranks on a point by point basis, but the skill challenge system is just terrible.

[Gx1080]

[Username17]

Comparable things would be...
3e- roll to hit vs AC, fort/ref/will as separate saves
4e- roll to hit vs AC/Fort/Ref/Will as defenses

3e- skills raised as points
4e- skills gained as proficiency

Grappling
3- subsystem varying with which .X it is
4- roll to hit vs fort/ref

All of those are good ideas.

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

it's not 4e's ideas that are bad, it's their execution. though I do prefer the traditional saving throw system just because it's a D&D trope

[Josh_Kablack]

3e Characters die at -10 HP
4e Characters die at -1 * MaxHp/2

3e Characters are fully capable until reduced to 0 HP (the Power Words and Deathwatch are pretty much the only things that amount of HP matters for )
4e Characters reduced to less than half of max HP gain the Bloodied status- which can trigger a myriad of other effects.

3e Effects durations vary inconsistently from a single round to over a year with little rhyme or reason
4e Effects durations vary inconsistently from less than a round to an entire encounter with little rhyme or reason

3e Common damaging abilities range from personal range to 400+40'level and can be extended further with feats
4e Damaging abilities with a range of greater than 20 squares are rare

3e Bows can hit targets out to over 1000+ ft (more with feats and magic)
4e Bows are largely limited to targets 50 squares away

3e Many spell and ability effects scale linearly with caster level
4e A few power effects gain a additional die or [W] per tier

3e Characters gain BAB at one of three rates each level
4e Characters gain +1/2 level to attack (and everything else), differences are due to static bonuses.

3e Characters suffer non-proficiency penalties for using a weapon they are not proficient with
4e Characters gain a proficiency bonus for using a weapon they are proficient with

3e Skill DCs come in both static and opposed varieties. DMs are encouraged to adjudicate unusual uses of the skill by comparing it to an existing static DC chart (see pages 30-31 of the 3.5 DMG)
4e Skill DCs scale with level, there are no static DCs
Skills come with static and opposed DCs, but DMs are outright told on page 42 of the DMG to adjudicate unusual uses of a skill by setting the DC according to a chart that scales by level. The pre-errata version of this chart had numbers that scaled by level faster than most skill bonuses scaled by level.
There, edited

3e: Critical Hits deal damage equal to ( ( a multiple ) times ( the weapon damage expression excluding extra dice ) ) plus ( any additional damage from uncommon magical properties like flaming burst ) this damage is of the type(s) the weapon normally deals
4e: Critical Hits deal damage equal to (the maximum rollable on the damage expression for the power and weapon combo) plus (a number of extra dice equal to the enhancement bonus of the weapon with the dice type determined by the magical properties of the weapon ) plus ( an additional [W] if the weapon is High Crit ) this damage is the type(s) weapon normally deals but with the extra magic critical dice frequently being an additional type.

3e: Character action sequence is: one Full Round Action - which could be divided into a Move Action + a Standard Action + Any number of free actions, aside from Swift Actions which are free actions that exclude other Swift actions and by the way Immediate actions count as Swift Actions for the turn but can be taken on other people's turns. If you take a single Full Round action, you can take a 5' step, but if you take a Standard + More, you can't. You can take a Full Round action to make a Full Attack. You can take a standard action to make an attack action, but if something gives you a bonus or free attack action, you cannot take a Standard action with it. Attacks of Opportunity have a per round limit that is totally different from all of the preceding.
4e: Character action sequence is Minor, Move, Standard. You can trade any down for an additional lesser action type. You can also take free actions until the MC says no. Mounts let you trade Minors up for moves and some magic items allow similar trading up on a small scale. On other people's turns you can take Opportunity Actions and Immediate Actions. You get up to one Opportunity action on each other player's turn. You also get Immediate actions, which can be interrupts or reactions, but whichever you can only take one Immediate action between your own turns.

3e: Has most class abilities on at-will, X/day, or the more rarely once per <time period other than a day> schedule. Often classes gain more uses of per-day abilities as they advance in level.
4e: Has all class abilities on at-will, once per day or once-per-5min schedule. Classes gain new abilities as they level but never gain additional uses or more frequent use of pre-existing powers.

3e Characters retain all low-level abilities into the high levels (with the exception of sorcerer spell swaps and selling magic items)
4e Characters are expected to swap out low level powers for higher level versions starting mid-paragon.



Jan 2012 additions edited in below

3e: Most status ailments (negative conditions) require specific spells or abilities to cure and remove. You need Remove Posion to cure Poison, you need Remove Curse to get rid of a curse, you need one of exactly five spells {Greater restoration, heal, limited wish, miracle, or wish } to fix Insanity.
4e: The vast majority of status ailments (negative conditions) are cured by making a successful saving throw against them, Of the few that aren't, the majority of those are cured by waiting a round, and nearly all of the remaining ones are cured by waiting 5 minutes.

3e: Characters are expected to roughly follow the DMG treasure tables and be able to sell and trade magic items at a harsh, but not unworkable exchange rate, thereby ending up somewhere near the listed wealth-by-level guidelines for magic items. 3e PCs will generally keep some items and trade some items away in order to get more appropriate items.
4e: (original) Players are expected to hand the letters to santa for items they want for their characters and between the steeper cost curve, the much harsher exchange rate and the edition's tighter attack vs AC range, will largely have to stick to what they find. 4e characters will generally keep and use most items, and only trade obsolete items in order to sponge missing bonus types, or trade a pile of like 20 obsolete items for one single item of level-appropriate bonus. (Essentials) Items have a rarity system, which further restricts buying, selling and trading items, meaning that PCs are even more dependent on dropped items.

[hogarth]

3e Skill DCs come in both static and opposed varieties
4e Skill DCs scale with level, there are no static DCs

I thought 4E had some static DCs as well.

[souran]

3e Skill DCs come in both static and opposed varieties
4e Skill DCs scale with level, there are no static DCs

I thought 4E had some static DCs as well.

4E has a static DC for saves and as listed you are moding the roll and not the DC.

However, there is also an argument about how 4E DCs are set that makes things ex post facto static.

One side argues that the process for DC determination in 4E starts with assigning everything a level and difficulty, looking at the DC charts, extracting a value and then that value assignment is permanent to that thing.

The evidence for this is the published adventures (which display every challenge this way), and the trap bulilding and encounter design discussions in the dmg.

The other side argues that the essence of the rules is that all obsticles/challneges in 4E are floating and that they set their difficulty value to exactly the party level at the time its encountered. So an obsticle could likely have 2 different DCs depending on the level of the players in the party taking on said obsticle. This further means that every thing in the whole universe gains a level at the same time whenver the players do.
The evidence for this is the text for jumping/balancing as part of the athletics and acrobatics skills, which imply limits set like this, as well as the discussions for adjusting adventures which implies that the values for monster stat blocks and traps can "float up" to whatever level the players are.

Although I run my 4E games using the first method, I like to think that the author's intent was for the second just because it seems to cause Frank to hulk out and go all angry man and indicate the the rules of 4E prevent you from doing anything.


Both of these differ from 3E where evreything in the whole universe has its DC set by either the DM (arbitarily) or by some source book (by a staffer).

[Archmage]

3e Skill DCs come in both static and opposed varieties
4e Skill DCs scale with level, there are no static DCs

I thought 4E had some static DCs as well.

There are, but not for all skills.

[tussock]

3e: Character action sequence is: ...
4e: Character action sequence is Minor, Move, Standard.

3.0 and 3.5 are just move and standard, or full round, plus one AoO. The rest of the crap appeared in the XPH and spread from there.

4.0 is minor and move and standard, plus unlimited AoO and an interrupt. But it all changes with conditions and action points and what other characters do and what the random monster abilities do, and what tricks you can use them for changes all the time too.

So in 3e he's 50' away and you charge. In 4e he's 10 squares away so you get slid 3 squares closer and he gets pulled 2 squares closer and you use your +2 move power that also lets you exchange places (but only once this fight).

[hogarth]

3e Skill DCs come in both static and opposed varieties
4e Skill DCs scale with level, there are no static DCs

I thought 4E had some static DCs as well.

There are, but not for all skills.

I thought so, but in the one 4E game I play in we hardly ever use skills at all, so I'm a little vague on how they work.

[Aryxbez]

4th edition had static like DC's at first, such as climbing surfaces, or DC's what kind of treatment could apply to someone with the Heal Skill. An example was how could do "Acrobatic Stunt" which whatever can BS with Acrobatics and DM allows, was DC 15 straight up. However then Essentials came with its rules compendium, and pretty much set it all up in the Oblivion-style level with the PC's on difficulty of Easy/medium/hard. So something like doing an Acrobatic Stunt, is now "Easy DC according to current party level" or whatever.

[Draco_Argentum]

3.0 and 3.5 are just move and standard, or full round, plus one AoO. The rest of the crap appeared in the XPH and spread from there.

Nope, the free action but not quite goes back to the 3.0 phb. Slow fall and quicken spell use it.

[Josh_Kablack]

claims that aren't quite true

Well, no problem buddy, I'm here for you. I'll give page number citations and links and everything.

Let's start with the easy one

Some rules for Swift actions appeared in The Miniatures Handbook (page 29), which as you can see here, has a publication date of October 2003.

Contrast with the [url=fhttp://www.amazon.com/Expanded-Psionics-Handbo ... 0786933011]first printing date on the XPH[/url].

So, claiming that the Swift action rules originated in the XPH is flat-out incorrect. At least it does appear that Immediate actions did originate in the XPH. (page 59)

Furthermore, the rules for Swift and Immediate Actions were reprinted in Complete Arcane, Spell Compendium and most importantly The OGL SRD for 3.5. So it's pretty obvious that those rules are part of 3.5. It's true they weren't in the 3.5 PHB as originally printed, so we could reasonably hem and haw over whether they count as CORE 3.5 - since they aren't in the PHB, but are in the SRD section that reproduces that part of the PHB. But it is beyond any reasonable doubt that they are 3.5 rules and therefore rules for 3e D&D. As much as I despise the XPH, it is beyond disingenuous to insinuate that it's somehow not 3e.

Furthermore, the Mini's HB discussion of the Swfit Action rules, makes clear that it's an evolutionary terminology for effects which already existed - the text cites Feather Fall and Quickened Spells as swift actions. And well, Feather Fall and Quicken Spell were printed in the first printing 3.0 PHB (pages 84 and 203). While the 3.0 PHB did not use the term "swift action" anywhere, it does state a limit of one Quickened spell per round and states that Feather Fall applies against such a limit. You will note that such is *exactly* how swift actions work. The only change from the initial 3.0 version to the rules in the XPH, subsequent supplements and the SRD is that Feather Fall became an Immediate action instead of an exception to not normally being able to take free actions out of turn. So the rules existed before the terminology was formalized.

3.0 and 3.5 are just move and standard, or full round,

Page 121 of the 3.0 PHB, lists action types as Standard, Full-Round (which may or may not come with a 5' step as Not an Action), Move-Equivalent, Free, Not an Action, and Partial. Furthermore, the following page explains Attack Actions.

Page 138-139 of the 3.5 PHB list action types as Standard, Move, Full-Round, Free, Not-an-Action, and replaces the Partial Action with Restricted Activity. Page 144 of the 3.5 PHB also has a section on Miscellaneous actions for tasks that don't fit into the preceding categories. Immediately following that, there's a section about when the 5' step is or isn't allowed, and yet again the allowance of the 5' step is tracked differently than other action types, making it more accounting for the player.

3.5 does not use an "attack action" heading anywhere, and instead merely lists Attack under the Standard Action section (pages 139-140), including a bit about how making multiple attacks is a Full Attack and therefore Full round action.

This all mattered for whether 3.5 haste, cleave, rapid shot, and similar bonus attack abilities let you make trip, sunder and disarm attempts in place of weapon attacks, whether Quick Draw let you draw a 2nd weapon on an AoO and a bunch of similar issues.

plus one AoO.

Unless Combat Reflexes, Hydra, class feature, item or spell grants more. That's still a per round limit, it's often just 1, but sometimes it's larger,.

4.0 is minor and move and standard, plus unlimited AoO and an interrupt.

4E OAs are less restrictive than 3e AoOs, but they are not unlimited.

OPPORTUNITY ACTION
Once per Combatant’s Turn: You can take no more than one opportunity action on each other combatant’s turn. You can’t take an opportunity action on your own turn.

Moving on

But it all changes with conditions and action points and what other characters do and what the random monster abilities do, and what tricks you can use them for changes all the time too.

This part at least is not unfactual. Sadly, it's also not entirely unique between the 2 editions.

and would be perhaps better phrased as

3e: monsters have abilities that can alter their own action sequence via pouncing, hasting or getting arbitrary multiple attacks (hydra)
4e: monsters have abilities that can alter their own action sequence via getting multiple initiative turns (ettin), creating duplicates with new initiatives (berbalang)

3e: monsters have abilities that can deny a PC actions for indefinite periods via dazing for 3days (sea hag), paralyzing for 1d8+5 weeks spider eater), or fascinating for concentration (harpy)
4e: monsters have abilities that can deny a PC actions for indefinite periods via or stun juggling PCs indefinitely (lamia with at will daze and 5-6 recharge AoE stun, elder blue dragon with at will AoE stun)

3e: PCs can get extra actions via Haste, Weapons of Speed, various feats, and wacky Polymorph abuse
4e: PCs can get extra actions via spending Action Points, and chaining powers which can trigger off of one another together with conditional feats


At least in my opinion, these are merely cosmetic differences and don't provide a meaningful contrast between 3e and 4e.

[tussock]

claims that aren't quite true

Well, no problem buddy, I'm here for you. I'll give page number citations and links and everything.

I love this place. I get away with my usual crap far too often elsewhere.

Partial actions? Gah! Of course, remembering 3.0 correctly involves understanding you couldn't delay into the next round, because once you delayed down to 0-mod you had to refocus up to next round's 20+mod. Because, BTB, you had to act before other delayers with a better initiative mod, unless you just kept using that other action on the same page.