Why I am considering selling my 4E books

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zadoc		#41	[-]
Posts: 5017 (06/19/08 00:53:53) Just showed up Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	They may fail to achieve it, but the apparent goal of 4E is to have far fewer classes, but each one be solid. I prefer that, personally. My take on this is that the goal of 4e is to have a class for every possible combination of focuses, rather than letting people mix multiple focuses from multiple classes to taste. Our first new class is the Swordmage, for someone who fights in melee with magic and swords. If you wanted to do a ranged version with bows and magic, that would be another class. And, divine versions of both. And your guy who steals with magic (arcane and divine). And then psionic versions of all of those, once we have that power source. That's not to say '4e is designed to get us to keep buying more books with more classes' in a negative way. I'd imagine that is pretty much understood that the overall goal is to get us to buy more books. 3e did the same thing with prestige classes. But, I definitely don't get the impression that the goal is to produce fewer classes, I'd say we'll get fewer classes because each class with take the book space of two to six prestige classes (depending on format). And I'm sure they'd like them all to be solid classes, but they probably wanted all the prestige classes in 3e to be solid as well, so we're bound to get a crappy class eventually. Now that said, I can see that this would be easier on us house ruling guys (or someone just trying to make Joe happy with a minimum of effort), if we had more optional sub systems to play with (or ignore). That would also cover the easy/harder class issue. It would be nice, for example, if there was a way to have a simplified class progression table, where the character got more at wills, slightly less encounter powers, no dailies, and just enough utility powers, none of them daily, to not be a piece of cardboard. That would be the equivalent of the "easy fighter". I'm not sure if that is possible, but would be handy if it was. You can't get much easier than: I've got a few things that can do all the time, and this handful that I can do once per encounter. The real key is that the powers they got would have to be rebalanced, as the character with no dailies is giving up power, and they need to get something back for it. But, that is the basic idea, you'd get less powers, but more of something worthwhile that is less effort to use. Using the NPC-style stat block for a PC is something you can try, but it's a fair amount of work for the DM and doesn't appear to be very well supported by the system. I'm sure it can be done, but it's hardly something someone should expect to be possible, as opposed to the 'just a fighter' of previous editions.
Cthon		#42	[-]
Posts: 6049 (06/19/08 02:23:08) No need for labels, right? Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I would really like to see a class or two that has mostly stance-type encounter powers, and utility powers that are always "on", kinda like many of the 3e warlock invocations (duration 24 hours). These powers would have to be less powerful, but they would appeal to "set it and forget it" style of players. I'm in that camp myself, sometimes. _______________________ bored with changing signatures
keteryck		#43	[-]
Posts: 8621 (06/19/08 06:48:11) Enigma Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Cthon, that was one of my two for providing easy options - the other being to make 'monster' progressions.
Cthon		#44	[-]
Posts: 6051 (06/19/08 07:20:13) No need for labels, right? Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	What's tricky for me is designing a "24 hour" version of something that normally lasts an encounter, or turning a daily that normally lasts one encounter into an encounter power that still lasts one encounter (or 5 minutes). _______________________ bored with changing signatures
Crazy Jerome		#45	[-]
Posts: 2998 (06/19/08 07:23:06) Mysterious Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	But, I definitely don't get the impression that the goal is to produce fewer classes, I'd say we'll get fewer classes because each class with take the book space of two to six prestige classes (depending on format). And I'm sure they'd like them all to be solid classes, but they probably wanted all the prestige classes in 3e to be solid as well, so we're bound to get a crappy class eventually. We will get some crappy ones, but I bet the proportion of solid to crappy will be different, at the necessary expense of less coverage. That is, not fewer classses, as in "some arbitrarily small number, that manages to cover the whole swath of what people want to do," but rather fewer, as in, "hits goal solid, and this takes more space and time." Or in other words, I might have worded my original statement better along the lines that the goal is produce solid classes and less a stream of classes with quality all over the board--and the means they have chosen to attempt this goal has led to more space and time being required on each class. As a result, we should see fewer classes overall, solid or crappy--but a higher percentage of solid, than what we got out of 3E. Note that there is no way to say this without doing an apparent slam on 3E design (and side effects of the open OGL). Compared to 4E, the 3E design (and licensing) was more along the lines of opening the floodgates. You get "complete coverage" PDQ, and then we got another round to try to replace crap with something better and fill in some gaps. And then another round. Yada, yada, yada. And of course you get a lot of mediocre stuff, too. (Lord knows I'm no fan of the bard design in 3E, and 3.5 changes were only kludges, not a fix of the design. No way would I ever classify a 3.* bard as "solid". But it was never crap, like some of the stuff that appeared in supplements.) Thing is, this was a good, viable strategy for 3E. But would we really want to go through the whole exercise again so soon? Maybe it would have been good, but my personal preference is that 3E has explored the "brainstorming" or "discovery" phase of class design pretty thoroughly, and it is time for some consolidation. If that means that some niches don't get any coverage at all in 4E, because no one has the skill or inclination to hit those targets--well, I can live with that. Interesting, the apparent 4E strategy is not unlike what you would get if you took all the 3.* classes, submitted them to, say, an expert, semi-objective panel of twenty 3.* players locked in a room, and told them to pick the best 30-40% of the classes. The rest would vanish from consideration. There would be some duds in the pick, and some good ones left out, but the picks would have a higher proportion of solid than the current universe of 3.* classes. (With the caveat, of course, that the 4E strategy will not be quite as effective, because there is always some drooling but dedicated fanboy willing to produce crap, no matter how high you set the cost of entry. It's a filter, not a complete barrier.) CJ "The smell of burnt fire monkey is not a cure for sea sickness." - my players
Zaraky		#46	[-]
Posts: 1281 (06/19/08 15:07:19) Spending some time Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I think a lot of the new stuff will be moved around. Instead of many classes, we will get many powers for the classes. So what we need to watch out for as far as underpowered and overpowered goes isn't the classes, it's the powers that classes can choose. So, instead of getting an influx of classes with some being crappy, we'll get a lot of powers with some being crappy. Iron Heroes You are not your magic weapon or armor. You are not your spellbook or holy symbol. You are not how much gold you have, or how many times you've been raised from the dead. When a Big Bad Demon snaps your sword in two, you do not cry because that was your holy avenger. You leap onto its back, climb up to its head, and punch it in the eye; then you get a new damn sword off of the next bandit you headbutt to death.
keteryck		#47	[-]
Posts: 8634 (06/19/08 17:35:36) Enigma Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Aside: You know, I never cease to get a little thrill when I see someone use that IH quote. It'll be funny if everything else I do is lost and forgotten, but I'm immortalized for the couple minute intro to a PbP game
Utgardloki	What about the Celestial Druid?	#48	[-]
Posts: 8 (06/19/08 19:50:41) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Crazy Jerome wrote: Interesting, the apparent 4E strategy is not unlike what you would get if you took all the 3.* classes, submitted them to, say, an expert, semi-objective panel of twenty 3.* players locked in a room, and told them to pick the best 30-40% of the classes. The rest would vanish from consideration. There would be some duds in the pick, and some good ones left out, but the picks would have a higher proportion of solid than the current universe of 3.* classes. (With the caveat, of course, that the 4E strategy will not be quite as effective, because there is always some drooling but dedicated fanboy willing to produce crap, no matter how high you set the cost of entry. It's a filter, not a complete barrier.) And what if somebody thinks that his campaign needs a Celestial Druid class, or a Mystic Dervish class, or an Archetyper, or any of the classes that didn't even get published in 3E because I made them up for my own games, and they certainly won't get published in 4E unless somebody at WoTC ends up reading my mind AND agree that I have a good idea. It's not that I can't make a Barbarian class. It's not that hard, although more time consuming than in 3E. But unlike 3E, where you can throw almost anything into the mix and it will work, 4E is a much more delicately balanced system. Everything interacts with everything else and it is harder to see if a new class is going to introduce balance problems, whether in a published supplement or whether it is something I make myself. I've thought about running a Macho Women with Guns game in 4E, just as a fun thing to do sometime, but the thought of converting all of the MWWG classes to 4E soon dissuades me from that idea.
nostantine		#49	[-]
Posts: 117 (06/19/08 20:15:49) Help me. Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	3e conversions from 2nd ed were really tough for the first 3-4 months for me, as I really didnt have 'handle' on the system balance. It will come. You should give your self longer than 2 weeks to bight stuff like that if you arent that comfortable with the system. I'm already playing in a game where the DM is running us through the Paizo Pathfinder series with a terriffic conversion and monster additions from the DM. He has said it takes some work, but not more than we had to do before. MUGATU! EEE! EEE!
Utgardloki		#50	[-]
Posts: 11 (06/19/08 20:54:35) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	What I have is more of a philosophical difference than a learning curve. I've had experience with D&D since 1980, and the style of play I am more comfortable with fits much better with 3E than with 4E. In 3E, when designing a class, I was always asking why (Why does a celestial druid exist? Why do Audorian Judges have arcane spells?). In 4E, I was always asking why not (Why can't barbarians use that exploit?).
Cthon		#51	[-]
Posts: 6059 (06/20/08 05:29:12) No need for labels, right? Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Uthgardloki: Converting classes and creating new classes are somewhat different tasks, though. Quote: "It's not that I can't make a Barbarian class. It's not that hard, although more time consuming than in 3E. But unlike 3E, where you can throw almost anything into the mix and it will work, 4E is a much more delicately balanced system. Everything interacts with everything else and it is harder to see if a new class is going to introduce balance problems, whether in a published supplement or whether it is something I make myself." I would also say that just mixing and matching class features from 3e classes was not generally balanced. Class features did interact with each other, at least as much as powers. For instance, giving some spellcasting ability to a melee based class can easily create some synergies that are simply too powerful, and class features often are low-powered for the level they are given out at (thousand faces, tongue of the sun and the moon, for instance). Sure, one could mix and match 3e classes to come up with good, balanced creations; the UA gave a whole chapter of examples on doing just that. The same can be done in 4e, too; except now, there are just more things to choose from (powers). _______________________ bored with changing signatures
High Priest of Syrinx		#52	[-]
Posts: 577 (06/20/08 05:35:42) Spooky Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Utgardloki wrote: In 4E, I was always asking why not (Why can't barbarians use that exploit?). ...and why did you undergo this change (from 3E)?? I'm sure you didn't scour through every available option in 3E when you created a new class, and I'm not seeing why you would do that now. In 3E, there were a handful of things a class could do, and many they couldn't. It's the same in 4E. Pick a handful of barbarian-y things to include as options for your new class, or just do like 3E and give the players zero choice for their class abilities.
Carthain		#53	[-]
Posts: 13373 (06/20/08 05:58:23) Keeper of the FAQ Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	In 4E, I was always asking why not (Why can't barbarians use that exploit?). Then perhaps you should just change your frame of reference? Instead of asking Why Not? Perhaps as "Which of these can a barbarian use?" and add in some of "What other abilities would be good for an ability?" You are also looking at 4E differently than you are 3.x -- even in your example of Why vs Why Not. In 3.x you are asking about why a specific class exists, but when you talk about 4E, you are referring the powers of a class. A true comparison would be more of "Why does a Barbarian class exist?" or perhaps "Why does the Impassive Guardian have Weapon Specialization?" Carthain. "Eschew Obfuscation."
Crazy Jerome		#54	[-]
Posts: 3002 (06/20/08 10:58:54) Mysterious Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	And what if somebody thinks that his campaign needs a Celestial Druid class, or a Mystic Dervish class, or an Archetyper, or any of the classes that didn't even get published in 3E because I made them up for my own games, and they certainly won't get published in 4E unless somebody at WoTC ends up reading my mind AND agree that I have a good idea. The difference between what people think they need and what they actually need is not typically a space I like to explore, even with things a lot more serious than roleplaying games. I never had any sympathy for people that simply could not play a samurai without a samurai class, in 3E or earlier, because I dislike the side effects that result from trying to cater to that mentality. 4E is somewhat less sympathetic to them than 3E is (though more sympathetic than I). If someone in my campaign thinks they need a "Celestial Druid" or such, I'll tell them to jump in a lake. YMMV. CJ "The smell of burnt fire monkey is not a cure for sea sickness." - my players
Utgardloki		#55	[-]
Posts: 14 (06/20/08 17:54:00) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	But I am the DM and I think there should be a Celestial Druid, after looking over the other options and considering that none of them quite fit. Granted, I started playing 3E with a 1E mentality, where you needed a separate class for almost every role because everything you did was defined for you class. But after a period of trying to figure out an Assassin and a Samurai class, I decided that concepts in 3rd Edition usually did not need new classes. There were exceptions. I designed a Mystic Theurge class because of the weakness in cleric/wizard multiclassing options, and considering the 3.5 DMG prestige class to be the worst-designed prestige class I ever saw. But when I started working on an Eldritch Knight class, I gave up because I couldn't think of anything for the Eldritch Knight to do. Want to combine fighting and magic? Be a bard, or a psychic warrior, or a fighter who takes a few levels of sorcerer (one of the few things the 3.5 sorcerer class is good for, imho, but I had a fix for that), or take a prestige class, or do one of a lot of other things that grants you a mix of fighting and magic ability. Granted, in 3E, no class is going to get you both great fighting and great magic casting, and that is just the way things are.
nostantine		#56	[-]
Posts: 124 (06/20/08 18:32:52) Help me. Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Utgardloki wrote: But I am the DM and I think there should be a Celestial Druid. Then put in the time to make one if its that necessary. IIRC, there is a shifter template or race in the DMG or MM. Slap that to a cleric, drop the chain armor, give them a minion or what not and call it a Druid. Or call your Cleric a Druid, make a few minor adjustments and move on with the game. I'm with Crazy Jerome on this one. If you can't make your fighter be a Samurai with your roleplay and flavor, calling your Bastard Sword a Katana and what not... then I dont know what to tell ya. D&Ds about the Roleplay as much as you let it, and about mechanics as much as you make it. MUGATU! EEE! EEE!

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