Bunch Of Geeks

Harbinger · Mon Jun 02, 2008 6:50 am 4e thoughts

I looked over the rules and talked to some friends and here are some more thoughts on the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. This will probably be more of a stream of consciousness type post so things are in a sort of random order.

My overall mood is cautiously optimistic. I am excited about it and want to play, but there are enough changes and things “missing” that I haven’t fully embraced it yet.

The game feels like a narrative board game rather than a role-playing game even more than 3.x. This doesn’t mean it is bad, it just has a different focus.

It might be a good idea to write your character on a stack of index cards rather than a character sheet. this is especially true of the powers.

There is no subtraction. I had a friend say this about 3.x before he became proficient with it so he was being prophetic, but he was a version early.

I miss the druid.

The only normal animal in the monster manual is a horse. There are no lions, tigers or bears. Oh My! I suppose this goes along with the druid not existing yet and the ranger not having an animal companion, but it seems strange to me.

Characters seem really pigeonholed into their “roles”. For example if you want to be an archer you pretty much have to be a ranger, you can’t build a fighter who is skilled at ranged combat. The wizard is the evoker, fire slinging guy. No illusionists, necromancers, diviners, summoners…..etc.

I like the new monster stat blocks and how monsters don’t have to be made using the same rules as the PCs.

I like that some of the complexity has been shifted away from the DM and towards the players.

The art is pretty good although I could use more Wayne Reynolds character art. I have pathfinder for this though.

I’ll post more as I think of stuff and read more.

Harbinger · Mon Jun 02, 2008 7:45 am

the MMO as RPG comparison seems to pretty strong. It remains to be seen if this is good or bad though.

I like that a third of the players handbook is not devoted to spells.

I also like that they moved all the magic items and experience and such to the player's handbook.

Morak100 · Mon Jun 02, 2008 10:03 am

I think the standardized magic items is going to make things easier as well

Harbinger · Mon Jun 02, 2008 1:33 pm

the gray wolf is also listed in the monster manual.

chrynoble · Mon Jun 02, 2008 1:56 pm

Morak100 wrote: I think the standardized magic items is going to make things easier as well

WOW magic items suck now though. I was just looking over rings and what not and they are silly stupid in how weak they are. Unless I am missing something.

Take for instance

PBH(4)251 wrote: Ring of Invisibility Level 18
This simple golden ring bears Elven runes etched lightly across its
surface.
Item Slot: Ring 85,000 gp
Property: Gain a +2 item bonus to Stealth checks.
Power (Daily ! Illusion): Standard Action. Become invisible
until the end of your next turn.
If you’ve reached at least one milestone today, using this
power requires only a minor action.

That means as level 18 I get a ring that lets me turn invisible for 1 turn Once per day?!

Allow me to contrast with 3.5:
DMG(3.5)232 wrote: Invisibility: By activating this simple silver ring, the wearer can benefit from invisibility, as the spell.
Faint illusion; CL 3rd; Forge Ring, invisibility; Price 20,000 gp.

This ring allows me to become invisible whenever I want, for as long as I want and is available as soon as level 8.

Harbinger · Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:37 pm

that ring is very bad. Also, is it even useful outside of combat. suppose the rogue is following someone down the street and wants to remain unseen. how does that work.

one bad thing about DnD 4th is the assumption that the entire game takes place in combat. Very few powers or items are useful outside combat encounters.

Harbinger · Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:50 pm

OK, after looking at it some more.

I think the +2 to stealth checks is the non-combat advantage to being invisible so it is only sort of invisible. This is a small bonus for an 18th level character.

Then once per day during an encounter you can gain some specific benefits related to combat for one turn.

It is still a lot less powerful than the previous version, and possibly way underpowered for an 18th level magic item worth 85,000gp.

Morak100 · Mon Jun 02, 2008 7:51 pm

that does look weak, also I don't like the healing potion, it should give the full benefit of a healing surge, instead of just 10hp

Harbinger · Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:20 am

The answer I got over on RPG.net

Harbinger on rpg.net wrote:
the remaining magic items seem really bland and under powered though.

Underpowered compeared with what, though? Magic items in 4E are significantly less pwoerful than their 3E equivalents certainly, but they are in keeping with the general power level of 4E. They are not underpowered compared with other 4E magic items.

The general reduction in item power appears to ensure that class abilities retain their primacy - for example the wizard can provide sustained invisibility for a period of 5 minutes from level 5, making a wizard the optimal choice if you want to turn invisible and ensuring that the wizard's spell isn't undermined by a cheap magical bauble.

In more general terms, the PHB doesn't have the wealth of magic items that we saw in the 3E DMG. I imagine that's why the book containing additional magic items and equipment is one of the first suppliments to be published. In that light, the PHB list is nothing more than a few examples to enable you to play and/or devise your own items, rather than a comprehensive guide to all items magical in 4E.[/quote]

Harbinger · Tue Jun 03, 2008 6:07 am

I like that alignment has little to no actual mechanical effects.

Harbinger · Tue Jun 03, 2008 6:45 am

architecture got big. most hallways are now 10ft wide and a normal room is something like 40' X 50'. This combined with diagonal movement being the same as all other movement makes me think that the whole time-space thing is extremely flexible and relative to the observer in DnD. Rooms change shape depending on where you are standing inside it. (a 15' X 15' square room would appear as a 15' diameter circle to a person standing in the center of it. whil if he moved to an edge, the close edge becomes flat while the other side becomes more oval shaped.

A person from a universe that works like our real world would find the spatial distortions in a dnd world to be very unsettling.

Hudson · Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:47 pm

Harbinger wrote: architecture got big. most hallways are now 10ft wide and a normal room is something like 40' X 50'. This combined with diagonal movement being the same as all other movement makes me think that the whole time-space thing is extremely flexible and relative to the observer in DnD. Rooms change shape depending on where you are standing inside it. (a 15' X 15' square room would appear as a 15' diameter circle to a person standing in the center of it. whil if he moved to an edge, the close edge becomes flat while the other side becomes more oval shaped.

A person from a universe that works like our real world would find the spatial distortions in a dnd world to be very unsettling.

I hated counting in diagonal in 3.x.

Harbinger · Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:24 am

counting diagonals isn't too bad as long as you aren't doing a whole bunch of them, but I to don't really like it. The only real solution would be to go to a map made of hexagons rather than squares.

(or to just do away with the battlemat, but that is hard to do with DnD

Harbinger · Thu Jun 05, 2008 10:10 am

the ranger is a brutal damage dealer now.

Harbinger · Thu Jun 05, 2008 2:12 pm

4e is a powers based fantasy superhero game system.

I can see how they are going to port this over to a modern superhero sytem already.

Basically just create a new set of classes for the archetypal superheroes, brick, blaster, flyer, skilled normal....etc and provide a list of powers. customizing keywords allows you to tailor the power to the character.

this won't be as flexible or as powerful as mutants and masterminds or Hero, but it could be a good fun superhero game.