Quote from: Rhedyn on June 22, 2021, 03:24:33 PM
I have not notice combat taking much longer in 4e than it does in 5e. 4e has 30 levels and most of them work. We're up to level 21 in a campaign and we have rituals equivalent to any magic you can do in 5e. The combats take way too long. Like 3+ hours for important fights and 1.5+ hours for anything else. Which is the same for 5e at that level.

It's not worse than 5e, I just hate sitting in initiative and it's no better at that than 5e.

From what I saw of the GW version of 4e combat seems to whizz along pretty fast. Possibly quicker than 5e which is pretty wham-bam-thank-you-mam prompt as well.

The only time either bog down is when you have players trying to either overanalyze a move, or trying to 'optimize' an attack, oft needlessly. Sometimes both at once. And even then it tends not to bog down too heavily.

Combat-wise 5e is unusually balanced in its timeframe for how long an encounter lasts. About 5 or so min give or take from my experience. Without any loss of a sense of danger or action overall unless the players were really strategizing. Which with my group happened with any big showdown they had any chance to plan for.

4e seems to have a similar sort of flow. But is it just me or does using the board game part of 4e slow it down notably?

Quote from: Sable Wyvern on June 22, 2021, 03:56:31 AM
The one thing I remember most distinctly from the arguments about 4e back when it was the current edition were a very vocal group of fans who absolutely lost their shit at the suggestion a DM may choose to not allow oozes to be tripped. "You're taking a class's core competency away and nerfing them!! If a player has a selected an ability with trip, then they are allowed to trip!"

The funniest thing is that every actual ooze monster (a lot of them became terrain in 4E) actually had "immune trip, flanking" in their statblock (I think one didn't, but got fixed in errata) so those arguments were entirely academic.

What it really spoke to was that 4E defined a lot of things using keywords rather than natural language and making sure a monster had appropriate keywords for what it could do was an important part of monster design.

That said, 4E also included and encouraged "refluffing" of effects to fit thematically. So IF an ooze could be "tripped" you'd instead look at the effects of that (i.e. you fall prone - which means you grant combat advantage to adjacent foes, are -2 to your own attacks and move at half speed until you spend a move action to end the prone condition) and just refluff the description based on that... ex. "The ooze is splattered across its space by the attack and can't defend, attack or move as effectively until it takes a moment or two to reform."

This was actually something I can to consider in my own game where players could choose to play anything from a tiny sprite to a large dragon. How a sprite, human and dragon use the Trip action is very different, but the effect of falling prone is the same so my own system reflects that in allowing players to define their own fluff for their actions rather than predefining it as happening a specific way.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 23, 2021, 08:34:21 PM

Quote from: Sable Wyvern on June 22, 2021, 03:56:31 AM
The one thing I remember most distinctly from the arguments about 4e back when it was the current edition were a very vocal group of fans who absolutely lost their shit at the suggestion a DM may choose to not allow oozes to be tripped. "You're taking a class's core competency away and nerfing them!! If a player has a selected an ability with trip, then they are allowed to trip!"

The funniest thing is that every actual ooze monster (a lot of them became terrain in 4E) actually had "immune trip, flanking" in their statblock (I think one didn't, but got fixed in errata) so those arguments were entirely academic.

What it really spoke to was that 4E defined a lot of things using keywords rather than natural language and making sure a monster had appropriate keywords for what it could do was an important part of monster design.

That said, 4E also included and encouraged "refluffing" of effects to fit thematically. So IF an ooze could be "tripped" you'd instead look at the effects of that (i.e. you fall prone - which means you grant combat advantage to adjacent foes, are -2 to your own attacks and move at half speed until you spend a move action to end the prone condition) and just refluff the description based on that... ex. "The ooze is splattered across its space by the attack and can't defend, attack or move as effectively until it takes a moment or two to reform."

This was actually something I can to consider in my own game where players could choose to play anything from a tiny sprite to a large dragon. How a sprite, human and dragon use the Trip action is very different, but the effect of falling prone is the same so my own system reflects that in allowing players to define their own fluff for their actions rather than predefining it as happening a specific way.

Yeah, I have no problem with someone that wants to allow trip to be used, just with different fluff. It was the raging OneTrueWayism of "You MUST allow all things to be tripped or you're a horrible human being and a horrible DM," that got me.

Quote from: Omega on June 23, 2021, 07:17:12 PM

Quote from: Sable Wyvern on June 22, 2021, 03:56:31 AM
The one thing I remember most distinctly from the arguments about 4e back when it was the current edition were a very vocal group of fans who absolutely lost their shit at the suggestion a DM may choose to not allow oozes to be tripped. "You're taking a class's core competency away and nerfing them!! If a player has a selected an ability with trip, then they are allowed to trip!"

They tried that over on BGG with 5e as well. "If I play a cleric then there MUST be Undead in the campaign for me to turn!" and "If my Ranger takes Giants as their foe then there MUST be giants in the campaign!!!"

I'm ok with a milder version of that -- I think it's fair for a player considering a cleric to know up-front how likely it will be that they get to turn things. And if player picks Giants as favoured enemy, and the GM knows there is no way the character will ever face giants, I'd expect the GM to point this out and give them the opportunity to pick something they will be able to use.

However, a player saying to a GM, "I'm selecting giants, so you must include giants for me to fight," I would not consider reasonable, unless that sort of player control over the setting is already agreed upon.

Quote from: Sable Wyvern on June 24, 2021, 12:40:52 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 23, 2021, 08:34:21 PM

Quote from: Sable Wyvern on June 22, 2021, 03:56:31 AM
The one thing I remember most distinctly from the arguments about 4e back when it was the current edition were a very vocal group of fans who absolutely lost their shit at the suggestion a DM may choose to not allow oozes to be tripped. "You're taking a class's core competency away and nerfing them!! If a player has a selected an ability with trip, then they are allowed to trip!"

The funniest thing is that every actual ooze monster (a lot of them became terrain in 4E) actually had "immune trip, flanking" in their statblock (I think one didn't, but got fixed in errata) so those arguments were entirely academic.

What it really spoke to was that 4E defined a lot of things using keywords rather than natural language and making sure a monster had appropriate keywords for what it could do was an important part of monster design.

That said, 4E also included and encouraged "refluffing" of effects to fit thematically. So IF an ooze could be "tripped" you'd instead look at the effects of that (i.e. you fall prone - which means you grant combat advantage to adjacent foes, are -2 to your own attacks and move at half speed until you spend a move action to end the prone condition) and just refluff the description based on that... ex. "The ooze is splattered across its space by the attack and can't defend, attack or move as effectively until it takes a moment or two to reform."

This was actually something I can to consider in my own game where players could choose to play anything from a tiny sprite to a large dragon. How a sprite, human and dragon use the Trip action is very different, but the effect of falling prone is the same so my own system reflects that in allowing players to define their own fluff for their actions rather than predefining it as happening a specific way.

Yeah, I have no problem with someone that wants to allow trip to be used, just with different fluff. It was the raging OneTrueWayism of "You MUST allow all things to be tripped or you're a horrible human being and a horrible DM," that got me.

This is probably an internet thing in many ways.  Not that I blame anyone for being soured on the game by 4e.  God knows it soured me on the game, when I discovered I couldn't actually discuss solutions to issues with the rules online without some raging fanboy moron accusing me of carrying water for 3e.

But online discourse always has this weird thing where a lot of people just have serious hangups about the fact the game generally expects one player to be in a leadership position.   Even now there's a lot of posters on Enworld who think the GM is being dictatorial if they won't allow them to play a Tabaxi or they want to say that a certain bit of lore from the books doesn't apply in their setting and therefore they can't build a character around it.

Part of it is just the nature of fandom.  It comes from being fan first - gamer second.  What's the point of having all that canonical knowledge if it can be contradicted?  In any case, I'm sure most of these people wouldn't actually say squat if an actual GM in an actual game made a ruling.

My favourite Trip action is when you use it on Flying creatures.

Aside from the 3e Basic Game (the one with 16 miniatures), my first D&D purchases were 4e. I got the starter set, then the core 3 books, then the Essentials sets and books. I have both printed copies and digital copies. I really like the system.

I afterward began investigating, and collecting, the "Basic" edition rule sets—B/X, BECMI, the Rules Cyclopedia, which I also really like. While fans of "Basic" D&D may not be particularly fond of 4e, I suspect that fans of 4e would prefer the "Basic" editions over other editions (excepting, perhaps, 5e, which has a lot of 4e built into it).

As an aside, Basic D&D, in my opinion, is not "theater of the mind", even if the players never use minis or tokens for combat, because a major element of the RAW is mapping out the dungeon.

With regard to the statement that 4e doesn't "feel" like D&D, I think it is due to something mentioned by an earlier poster in this thread: the characters have inherent abilities to deal with their adventures, rather than relying on their equippage.

Basic D&D has strong elements of exploration and resource management. Players are supposed to keep account, for example, of how many rations and torches they have. They draw out the map, as described by the DM, which they must use to succeed. They do better if they are clever with their gear. The need to count torches and draw maps adds an element of the mundane to the characters, even with fantasy magic available to them. They can die from starvation or thirst, or from carelessness. It makes the characters seem more "real", and so, possibly, more relatable to the players.

4e characters are superheroes. Their power is within. If they lose a magic sword, they can still be very effective by picking up a rock or tree branch. They can afford to be somewhat careless, and they definitely don't need to keep track of light sources and food stocks. I mean, the rules include food and torches and such, but the main thrust of the game is being Big Damn Heroes, busting down the door and putting the dragon in a headlock. Fighting Orcs amidst the falling rubble in the depths of an abyss, jumping from  rock to rock. Not cautiously inching down the corridor, keeping the shutter on the lantern nearly closed in hopes that monsters won't see them, unsure if this is the way out, because the guy with the map fell into a spike trap. 4e adventurers aren't, I think, directly relatable, to most people, anyways. They can't have the same outlook on life than a normal person does, because their inherent abilities and powers insulate them from most mundane concerns.

Both styles of play are fun, but each scratches a different itch.

The thing I like most about 4e is the core setting of the Nentir Vale/Points of Light. A world created by the primordials and the gods, working at cross purposes, and so rife with built-in metaphysical conflict. An empire that collapsed from its own hubris, but also from an unbeatable, demonic foe and his remorseless armies. Abandoned strongholds and manor houses that had been built during the good times. Mirror worlds of fey and shadow that can be accidentally stumbled into. Petty nobles and warlords scrambling to gain power and influence in the desolate ruins of civilization.

Quote from: TJS on June 23, 2021, 06:48:10 PM

Quote from: KingCheops on June 23, 2021, 06:33:59 PM

Quote from: TJS on June 23, 2021, 06:23:31 PM
(It also doesn't help that the game seems to assume you will use skill challenges to do non-dungeon stuff, but then gives you a set of skills that are focused on dungeon stuff.  If I'm supposed to use a skill challenge to handle defending a city under siege then there really needs to be some skills that feel like they are actually applicable without being overly stretched.)

Which edition handled this well?

Well only D&D actually has skill challenges, so it's not all that relevant for others.

The issue is a skill challenge one, because the system tends toward the broad narration.  Rather than doing lots of things in discrete steps you sort take a broad sweep and then abstract that into a roll.

If you're not using skill challenges the Fighter might just describe what they are doing to improve the defences of the city and the GM might take it into consideration (it may not be as satisfying as having a proper subsystem, but it's not a problem either.)  The skill challenge system basically means that all of that is basically abstracted into a skill roll.  If you succeed on a skill roll then the bolstered defences help lead to victory, if you fail they don't mean anything*.  This means that what skill you roll is important here.  What skill do you roll for this?  Looking at the list, the only one that seems vaguely appropriate is History.  But did the Fighter take History?  Why would the player of the Fighter have thought they would use History for things like this?  And then there's also going to be the issue that Wizard probably has History and a higher Int, so if it's History maybe he should be the one to bolster the defences of the city. 

If you had something like 13th Age style backgrounds you wouldn't have the same gaps.  If the  Fighter has "Student of the College of War" then it's clear what to roll.  Even Profession (Soldier) would be better here. The Profession skills were taken out of 4e because they were regarded as extraneous, but actually they would have given players quite a lot of opportunity to leverage them in skill challenges.

*You can start to see why the basic approach works better in Savage Worlds where you have more of a bell curve to your roll and a metacurrency that you can bring into play if you really want to do this - the D20 roll is just too random here - too often the player describes something cool, which they should be able to do, and the result is completely anti-climactic. 

Well I mean the Fighter might take the History skill because the History skill explicitly states that it covers wars.

So in all the other rule sets you'd just say "okay you upgrade the defenses"?  If it's that easy why are you running it as a Skill Challenge in 4e?  What are the stakes and consequences?  Is there a time limit?  In other systems you'd probably make some sort of skill roll to see how many berms you can build in the 2 days before the orc horde appears.  You might also make some sort of Teaching skill to instruct the peasants of the town how to hold a spear and stick it in an orc.  Perhaps an Arcana skill to place some wards or a Religion check to bless some ground?  I'd guess that in other game systems you as DM would probably also make some sort of ruling about the success/failure of these attempts?

I'm more than willing to admit that Skill Challenges were clunky, hard to understand, and difficult to use.  But the 1 or 2 times I did manage to successfully run a skill challenge it was a ton of fun.  My 5e DM is using skill challenges in his game after watching Matt Colville recommend their use.

I think 4e did a good job calling out that this is a tool to use and at least attempted to codify such situations in the game but unfortunately they came up with 3 failures before gaining enough successes.

I wouldn't say "superhero", just "hero."

And I actually mean that in the D&D sense of "4th Level Fighter." A starting PC in 4E is about as survivable as a 4th level PC in prior editions. They have enough hit points to take 3-4 good hits before dying, solid mundane gear, a couple of reliable mainstay abilities, and a handful of limited use ones.

For example, if you used the expected 3-4 encounters per day a 4E wizard would start with at-will cantrips (their at-wills, with the attack ones about on par with the crossbow or darts they'd have in previous editions), 3-4 "level one" (their encounter power) spells, and 1 "level two" (their daily power) spell and the capacity to use a few rituals). The cleric is in pretty much the same boat with a couple extra healing spells and 3-4 turning attempts per day.

Meanwhile the starting knight or slayer (i.e. Essentials Fighters) have plate armor, know a couple of combat stances and can smack a target really hard once per encounter). The thief (Essentials Rogue) has their sneak attack for a couple extra dice, a couple of movement based stunts and once per encounter can backstab to add more damage to their sneak attack.

The even more interesting aspect in relation to this is that, based on all the campaigns I tracked while researching for my own system, the vast majority of them considered the 1-10 game to be the best part... so basically the same 4-14 game that just about every edition of D&D shines in.

From the people I interviewed when developing my own "inspired by" system, level 16 (when the paragon path grants its big feature that's often a gamechanger) is the point where even the complexity lovers tend to hit "peak complexity."

A 4E character typically starts with 2 at-will attacks, 1 encounter attack, 1 daily attack, 1 feat and a couple of class/race features to keep track of.

At level 10 you're up to 3 encounter attacks, 3 daily attacks, 3 utility powers and 6 feats (plus the 2 at-wills and couple of race/class features).

By level 16 you've added 1 more encounter attack power and replaced another, replaced one of your daily attacks, added another utility, two paragon path features and 4 more feats onto your PC, not counting any powers added by magic items. You've basically quadrupled the number of things you're tracking relative to a starting PC.

And it goes up from there.

There's a reason why, by the time Dark Sun/year two rolled around, the design paradigm had switched to powers that scaled up instead of needing to be replaced and why Essentials took a hatchet to the fiddly feats and created a consolidated list of about a hundred general feats without prereqs or level requirements and why almost nothing was done with the epic tier (levels 21-30) after the first year beyond the perfunctory.

It's also the reason the system I built coming out of 4E settled on just 15 levels and an expectation that most campaigns would wrap up by the early teens.

Quote from: KingCheops on June 24, 2021, 10:47:17 AM

Quote from: TJS on June 23, 2021, 06:48:10 PM

Quote from: KingCheops on June 23, 2021, 06:33:59 PM

Quote from: TJS on June 23, 2021, 06:23:31 PM
(It also doesn't help that the game seems to assume you will use skill challenges to do non-dungeon stuff, but then gives you a set of skills that are focused on dungeon stuff.  If I'm supposed to use a skill challenge to handle defending a city under siege then there really needs to be some skills that feel like they are actually applicable without being overly stretched.)

Which edition handled this well?

Well only D&D actually has skill challenges, so it's not all that relevant for others.

The issue is a skill challenge one, because the system tends toward the broad narration.  Rather than doing lots of things in discrete steps you sort take a broad sweep and then abstract that into a roll.

If you're not using skill challenges the Fighter might just describe what they are doing to improve the defences of the city and the GM might take it into consideration (it may not be as satisfying as having a proper subsystem, but it's not a problem either.)  The skill challenge system basically means that all of that is basically abstracted into a skill roll.  If you succeed on a skill roll then the bolstered defences help lead to victory, if you fail they don't mean anything*.  This means that what skill you roll is important here.  What skill do you roll for this?  Looking at the list, the only one that seems vaguely appropriate is History.  But did the Fighter take History?  Why would the player of the Fighter have thought they would use History for things like this?  And then there's also going to be the issue that Wizard probably has History and a higher Int, so if it's History maybe he should be the one to bolster the defences of the city. 

If you had something like 13th Age style backgrounds you wouldn't have the same gaps.  If the  Fighter has "Student of the College of War" then it's clear what to roll.  Even Profession (Soldier) would be better here. The Profession skills were taken out of 4e because they were regarded as extraneous, but actually they would have given players quite a lot of opportunity to leverage them in skill challenges.

*You can start to see why the basic approach works better in Savage Worlds where you have more of a bell curve to your roll and a metacurrency that you can bring into play if you really want to do this - the D20 roll is just too random here - too often the player describes something cool, which they should be able to do, and the result is completely anti-climactic. 

Well I mean the Fighter might take the History skill because the History skill explicitly states that it covers wars.

So in all the other rule sets you'd just say "okay you upgrade the defenses"?  If it's that easy why are you running it as a Skill Challenge in 4e?  What are the stakes and consequences?  Is there a time limit?  In other systems you'd probably make some sort of skill roll to see how many berms you can build in the 2 days before the orc horde appears.  You might also make some sort of Teaching skill to instruct the peasants of the town how to hold a spear and stick it in an orc.  Perhaps an Arcana skill to place some wards or a Religion check to bless some ground?  I'd guess that in other game systems you as DM would probably also make some sort of ruling about the success/failure of these attempts?

I'm more than willing to admit that Skill Challenges were clunky, hard to understand, and difficult to use.  But the 1 or 2 times I did manage to successfully run a skill challenge it was a ton of fun.  My 5e DM is using skill challenges in his game after watching Matt Colville recommend their use.

I think 4e did a good job calling out that this is a tool to use and at least attempted to codify such situations in the game but unfortunately they came up with 3 failures before gaining enough successes.

The thing is, in a less abstract approach if the defences were upgraded that would be a fact to take into consideration.  Just like the city has a wall and a gate, it now has different defences.  Now this may not be ideal (there's nothing worse in a game then everyone describing what they are doing to prepare and the GM obviously just running through the scenario without taking any of that into consideration).  Ideally you want some mechanical tracking, although a good GM can find a way to make it significant.

Basically D&D's skill system has issues and skill challenges have a tendency to really compound those issues by making it impossible to get around them.  So if History covers war, then the best person to strategise is the Wizard; if Persuasion or Diplomacy governs teaching peasants how to hold a spear than the Bard should do it.  Basically, because everything you do is a justification for a skill roll, and you need to roll successes to have an impact, the pull is to choose a skill first and then look for a justification to roll it and this has a distorting effect; the Fighter obviously always wants to roll Athletics "Can I impress the King by flexing my massive guns?"

It also doesn't matter what you do, as long as it is not so ridiculous the GM won't let you roll it.  There isn't any tactical trade off here.  Putting arcane sigils on the wall, bolstering the defences, training the peasants, inspiring the peasants with a jaunty ditty, all of these have exactly the same impact and value.

It's also very abritrary thanks to the D20's wide range. This becomes more apparent the more you zoom out.  In a combat a single attack roll is seconds so it doesn't feel so arbitrary and the combat as a whole is a bell curve.  But in a zoomed out skill challenge you could spend a week to complete a single action and on that level a D20 roll with no player recourse feels extremely arbritrary.

I think the only way to run a skill challenge is to just use it as guidance in the background secretly, and not actually tell the players they're in a skill challenge. Just run it as an RP scene.

Ah, Skill Challenges.

I am surprised that there are still people who recommend them.  Sounds like an epic Troll move to me.

Resident 4E Fan here, so I'm biased as fuck....

RE: MMO's - Eh, Class roles have always been prevalent in D&D, Hit Die, Armor and weapon proficiency, differences in spells, ALL point characters into a particular role. Wizards don't heal, Fighters don't drop Fireball, Clerics fight the Undead, etc. These are roles. ALL 4E did was give more people access to roles AND push that role to the fore front of your character's design. Jumping from the Lego's Brand / Build-A-PC concept that 3e/3.5/Pathfinder enforced where you could do almost everything by "dipping" to a class-formed style that pushed Role Narratives. And even this concept was diluted through 4E's lifespan where options came out in terms of both class design (there were several dual-role classes) and add-ons like Themes. By the end of 4E's cycle, you could make a Paladin a "strike" (heavy damage dealing) and stealthy simply by Hybrid-Classing, taking the appropriate Theme and Background, and Race. Not only that but there were other options pushed such as level-by-level Multiclassing that we saw in 3.5 (you didn't get access to class features, but you could swap powers per level) that was introduced with Dragon magazine.

RE: RPG-ness - Overall, this is pretty damn dumb. 4E didn't take away any role-playing game elements that were exclusively in other editions. I think the designers went into the game design of the system saying "You don't need rules if you want to play a Blacksmith / Tradesman / Entertainer / etc" because these are covered with simply role-playing at the table and possible some skills. No 'need' for extensive sub-systems to facilitate how difficult it is to craft a sword, or wow a crowed with your song (this is best described via Diplomacy or just a Charisma check), or taking steps to build your own castle. Exactly WHAT do people mean when they say it lacks elements of a "true" RPG and what rules were lacking in the Dungeon Master's Guide to help a DM facilitate that in their games?

RE: Realistic Abilities - Pretty hilarious, honestly. What I find very confusing is why weren't these conversations EVER brought up before 4E? Why doesn't a Barbarian's Rage 1/day break Verisimilitude? Why doesn't the Monk's 'Stunning Fist' X/Day break people's Verisimilitude? How does it makse sense that someone falls 45-ft. off a cliff and simply get up and keep fighting??? Realism is a BS concept when it comes to D&D and always has been. Also, why were people OK with a Fighter being limited to 1 attack if he moved more than 5-ft BUT upset that he can only attack everyone in a 5-ft area once per 5-mintue (encounter power)?

ALL of these are common elements in the 3e/3.5 Player's Handbook and absolutely make zero sense in any sense of Realism. People can only get Mad once a day? People can only punch really hard a few times a day? Please.... And what makes this complaint absolutely hilarious is how - currently - people practically gush about 5th Edition and have zero, none, nada, qualms about Short Rest abilities. The ONLY difference I can see in people's anger over how "different" 4E was is the simple fact that 4E's interior design used Colored Boxes. That's it. The only reason people shrill "video game!" is because 4E uses boxes to deliver their exploits instead of plain text (nevermind that the Tome of Battle used the exact same method).

RE: Balance - 4E is often cited as the "most balanced" version of D&D and while I agree that 4E does a bit better job of maintaining a better balance amongst the different classes, I think it's only balanced against it's previous version. If anything, 3e and 3.5 were SO overly UNBALANVCED that anything trying to reign things in would look starkly different. 3.5 is really the culprit here, as it completely took ALL of the balanced elements from 1e and 2e and practically chucked them out of the nearest window. Remember when Spellcasters had to spend an hour per level per SPELL?? Memorizing three 1st level and two 2nd level spells would take SEVEN hours of time. This right here - alone - makes casters REALLY weigh how important a spells is needed in any given situation to cast. In 3.5, an hour and BOOM all of your spells - literally dozens upon dozens - are up and available to use. Casting a spell took time AND was dangerous if you got interrupted. Not in 3.5, where 90% or more of the spells took one standard action on your turn. Unless someone readied an action to hit you (and why would they, until turn 2?) then you're basically free to cast whatever you want without any interruption. Not to mention the 5-ft step rule that basically meant you just side-stepped an cast as your leisure.

Now 4E might have taken things to the extreme. Yes, a Wizard dropping Fireball in 4E isn't special or mesmerizing and it certainly isn't going to kill a lot of monsters, but in a game like 4E, it makes sense because of how much Teamwork is emphasized. That is another element that I loved about 4E, no one Character was going to hog the spotlight and kill EVERY enemy on the board in 1 turn, making my character pointless. 


RE: Combat Time - Early on, 4E combats took longer at the earlier levels. This was because my concept of fighting monsters was rooted in previous editions. Monster "roles" were unnecessary because a Goblin was a goblin as any other goblin, with small exceptions to their weapons or armored used. They generally have less than 10 HP, low to middle armor, and hit kind of weak for anyone past 2nd level. Not in 4E. Nope, goblins are kinda scary - especially the soldiers - for low level parties. A group of 5-6 standard goblins against a 4-5 1st level Group was a very difficult, easily fatal encounter for some. And this threw off people's expectations. More likely the DM needed to read the rules about combat encounter construction more thoroughly. This is kind of why I love Minions. See I can throw literally DOZENS of them at low-level parties and they can wade through them like they're in some Lord of the Rings scene. But I make the stronger ones stand out more. Maybe they're colored different, or they have a bigger weapon or better armor. These are going to be tougher to bring down. Things like that. Minions needed to be used FAR more often early on 4E's pre-made adventures to keep combat time minimal.

Quote from: Batman on July 01, 2021, 05:03:29 PM
Remember when Spellcasters had to spend an hour per level per SPELL?? Memorizing three 1st level and two 2nd level spells would take SEVEN hours of time. This right here - alone - makes casters REALLY weigh how important a spells is needed in any given situation to cast. In 3.5, an hour and BOOM all of your spells - literally dozens upon dozens - are up and available to use.

AD&D spells took 15 minutes/level to memorize, not 1 hour. Basic D&D was 1 hour, same as v.3.5.

You're also missing some of the other major limiters that were removed between AD&D and third edition. Flat saves became opposed saves. Restrictions like aging were removed or nerfed (XP). Spellcasters, especially those relying on save or die spells, became vastly more powerful.

Quote from: Batman on July 01, 2021, 05:03:29 PM
The only reason people shrill "video game!" is because 4E uses boxes to deliver their exploits instead of plain text (nevermind that the Tome of Battle used the exact same method).

That's not a very good argument. Tome of Battle was called video gamey from the instant it was released. When 4e came out, they called ToB:TBoNS its precursor.

Quote from: Pat on July 01, 2021, 06:19:27 PM

Quote from: Batman on July 01, 2021, 05:03:29 PM
Remember when Spellcasters had to spend an hour per level per SPELL?? Memorizing three 1st level and two 2nd level spells would take SEVEN hours of time. This right here - alone - makes casters REALLY weigh how important a spells is needed in any given situation to cast. In 3.5, an hour and BOOM all of your spells - literally dozens upon dozens - are up and available to use.

AD&D spells took 15 minutes/level to memorize, not 1 hour. Basic D&D was 1 hour, same as v.3.5.

You're also missing some of the other major limiters that were removed between AD&D and third edition. Flat saves became opposed saves. Restrictions like aging were removed or nerfed (XP). Spellcasters, especially those relying on save or die spells, became vastly more powerful.

My mistake. it's been decades since I've played pre-WotC D&D, my memory is fuzzy as to that particular. I simply remember thinking how crazy easy it was to prep spells in 3e as opposed to earlier versions. Also, this wasn't an exhaustive list,  many other elements went into the balance of 1e and 2e that 3e stopped, not to mention how nerfed Fighters were with their lack or Multiattack per round.

Quote from: Pat on July 01, 2021, 06:19:27 PM

Quote from: Batman on July 01, 2021, 05:03:29 PM
The only reason people shrill "video game!" is because 4E uses boxes to deliver their exploits instead of plain text (nevermind that the Tome of Battle used the exact same method).

That's not a very good argument. Tome of Battle was called video gamey from the instant it was released. When 4e came out, they called ToB:TBoNS its precursor.

I can only speak for myself and my experiences but the ToB is often regarded as one of the BEST 3.5 books in the library. Sure, some don't like it but - again from my experience- these are also the same ones who think terrible feats like Monkey Grip and Vow of Poverty are broken, or the Warlock's unlimited power is crazy good (none of that is true).

Also, what is "video gamey"? Is the Fast Healing ability of the Combat Forms video gamey? No one complained about that. Wht about all the Extraordinary abilities that are limited by daily restrictions? Point is, 3.5 is rife with them but it wasn't an issue until it was more common.