Man that was a close call.

[Sir Ironside]

I was sitting in front of my computer, daydreaming and reading a few threads about 4e. Now admittedly there has been a nagging, in the back of my mind, about trying 4e. I saw a nice little starter set on sale at Amazon. I figured why not take the plunge and just get it. Well I decided to wait a day and see if I felt any different the following day.

Well the decision was made when I started to read some of C&C stuff I had bought. I knew I couldn't support both C&C and D&D4e. Reading the stuff I bought from TLG made me realize why I turned to C&C in the first place. So, I never left the fold and just look forward to many happy years gaming with C&C.
_________________
That is SIR! to you!

[serleran]

What, pray tell, didst thou spy with thine eyes?
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Serl's Corner

[koralas]

I did give 4e a whirl, with some friends while at GenCon. I was playing a Elf Wizard, 3rd level. Did not like the game very much. It is like playing a cross between an MMORPG and a miniatures war game. Further, the level of min/maxing in 4E is huge. Just not my style, for those that enjoy such, have at it! After all, you want a game that fits your play style.

My experience was with a Wizard character that had me throwing Magic Missles around just about every round. The spell system is like a skill system, and with Magic Missile, you just need to roll to hit. Since the Wizard was tricked out with a magical staff that gave a bonus to hit and damage for MM, abilities purchased, and what all else I can't remember, I had a +7 to hit, and I forget what gave him the ability to power up for one shot per combat to +10 to hit. Let's just say that the Fighter in the group was just a tank to draw aggro and soak damage as the Rouge flanked for his additional "Back Stab" damage and the Wizard sat and tossed spells. He couldn't do nearly as much damage as the Rogue or Wizard could. Top that with the Elf's personal Dimension Door ability (usable 1xday), I forget the name, and the one time an enemy did get on him, he used this to teleport away, then used a healing surge to recover HP. We walked through the 6 room dungeon in about an hour to hour and a half. The boss at the end of the module went down fairly quickly. Granted my fellow players and I were rather tactical in our approach to combat, working out ahead of time how we would work together, as any good group of adventurers should, but the need for mini's and a grid to work out combat on made the game more tactical (i.e. "ROLL") based gaming, than an interactive story ("Role") style of play. Everything is determined by how many squares you can move, range, AoE, etc. To me, it came off quite flat. As such, I bowed out and let another in our group play in the Open. They did advance to the 2nd round...

Overall I can see the appeal to 4E for some gamers, and it is WotC's right to do with it's game as it sees fit. If they can capture some of the MMORPG gamers that haven't played pen and paper RPGs, then that is a good model to follow. However, the long-term success will be determined by how many new players they gain as opposed to the number of gamers, like most of us Crusaders, they lose. In the end, I think the brand recognition will keep them going. I wish them luck, as for me and mine, we will forever be, and will continue to spread, the joy of "Old School".

[Treebore]

I still play 4E, occasionally. I play C&C all the time. Why? Because C&C is a lot more fun for me to play or run. 4E is fun, but not nearly as much as C&C, or even 3E for that matter.

Plus I have been playing D&D for over 20 years, and 4E is no longer the D&

D I have played for over 2 decades. Its something else, in the same sense that GURPS and Paladium Fantasy are something else.

So I have fun playing them, when I want something else, but I want C&C for my D&D.
_________________
The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

[Sir Ironside]

serleran wrote:
What, pray tell, didst thou spy with thine eyes?

It was After Winters Dark. Which really was the good choice because the feel I get from it was very much the same the first time I cracked open the GreyHawk folio way back in the '80's. I still have great love for Greyhawk and After Winters Dark and Airdhe looks like a suitable replacement.

To be honest I really got caught up in WoTC's announcement that 2010's gaming world was going to be Dark Sun. Yes I have the C&C conversion but it stilled called to me none the less.

I am so glad that I have taught myself to wait at least a day before making a big purchase. Sometimes I even wait longer. It has helped in making up my mind if I truly want it or is it just impulse.
_________________
That is SIR! to you!

[Aladar]

koralas,

Thanks for that evaluation of 4th Ed. D&D. I have heard similar stories from others who have tried it. It just makes me more glad that I never touched a 4th Ed. book. I don't criticize others for playing it, if it is want they want to play, I just prefer C&C myself.
_________________
Lord Aladar

Warden of the Welk Wood

Baron of the Castles & Crusades Society

The Poster formerly known as Alwyn

Senior Gamer - Member of the Senior RPG Tour

"NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT - At least not in Yu Gi Oh"
http://www.cncsociety.org/

[serleran]

The AWD folio is a very nice thing, I must admit. Short and sweet, with enough call to adventure.
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Serl's Corner

[Lord Dynel]

I am one of those folks that wanted to like 4e. Deep, down inside I wanted to continue the D&D tradition at my table. But despite my hopes of keeping D&D at my game, 4e just wouldn't allow it. D&D changed into something unrecognizable to me.

Since I'm not trying to make this a 4e bashing thread, all I will say is that I'm glad I found C&C. I had bought the PHB and it sat on my bookshelf for almost a year before I gave it a fair look. When I did (coincidentally, about the time of the 4e announcement) I kicked myself for not looking at it earlier!
_________________
LD's C&C creations - the witch, a half-ogre, skill and 0-level rules

Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

[Wolfram_Stout]

Hi,

I bought the 4th Edition D&D books, DM'ed it once, enjoyed it very much. But I realized I didn't have it in me to master the rules. And my players play whatever I put on the table.

I like a lot of the philosophies of 4th edition, and think they helped me be a better Castle Keeper.

But the elegance and simplicity of C&C can not be beat. Neither can the cost to fun ratio.

Wolfram

[Lord Dynel]

Wolfram_Stout wrote:
Hi,

I bought the 4th Edition D&D books, DM'ed it once, enjoyed it very much. But I realized I didn't have it in me to master the rules. And my players play whatever I put on the table.

I like a lot of the philosophies of 4th edition, and think they helped me be a better Castle Keeper.

But the elegance and simplicity of C&C can not be beat. Neither can the cost to fun ratio.

Wolfram

I wish my players would play whatever I put down in front of them. You're a lucky man!
Yeah, system mastery is an issue with 4th, it would seem. It was that way, sadly, with 3rd Edition too. If you knew the right combinations of feats and prestige classes and what you can and cannot do in combat you could "exploit" the rules quite well.
_________________
LD's C&C creations - the witch, a half-ogre, skill and 0-level rules

Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

[DaveyB]

Lord Dynel wrote:
I wish my players would play whatever I put down in front of them. You're a lucky man!
Yeah, system mastery is an issue with 4th, it would seem. It was that way, sadly, with 3rd Edition too. If you knew the right combinations of feats and prestige classes and what you can and cannot do in combat you could "exploit" the rules quite well.

To be fair LD, system mastery comes with any game or rules set in general that relies on a similar method of feats, skills, edges, etc.; it's not specific to D&D or RPGs in general. Who among us out there hasn't tried to exploit the rules in a given game or system to gain an advantage; be it a board game, video game, or what have you?

Having played and DM'ed 4e for a long time, I feel it unfair to say that 4e promotes mastery more-so than any other edition. It's really hard to one-up someone else the way the system is balanced to make everyone play on a level field; although apparently, from what I've read on other boards, there are certain combos of magic items and powers that can unbalance things a tad. I think it would be almost impossible to keep so many options totally balanced and be able to catch every conceivable combination. Of course, that leads me to my main beef with 4e; too many supplements! A book a month is a crazy schedule to maintain and they're making TSR look slow in comparison!
Granted, neither I nor my players play like it seems most of the newer generations play; with the implicit intent of having an ber character with maxed everything. My method of character generation is pick a class, pick a cool weapon, and choose a few powers that I think fit his idea or look cool.

I've also never seen or witnessed what was so "broken" about 3e that people keep whining about on other boards. Granted we never got past level 11 or 12, but what we played certainly seemed fine to us. Again, we didn't min/max our characters because that's not really our style, so maybe that's why we didn't encounter it?

I guess my main point in this ramble is that if 3e was the king of mastery, 4e seems to be a step in the opposite direction since magical items aren't nearly as important and their benefits are normally something minor. Having all of the character and powers be of similar power level also reduces the chances of something coming along that's truly broken, but again, I've never witnessed anything "broken" about previous editions either. Just my $0.02!

[Wolfram_Stout]

DaveyB wrote:
To be fair LD, system mastery comes with any game or rules set in general that relies on a similar method of feats, skills, edges, etc.; it's not specific to D&D or RPGs in general. Who among us out there hasn't tried to exploit the rules in a given game or system to gain an advantage; be it a board game, video game, or what have you?

Having played and DM'ed 4e for a long time, I feel it unfair to say that 4e promotes mastery more-so than any other edition. It's really hard to one-up someone else the way the system is balanced to make everyone play on a level field; although apparently, from what I've read on other boards, there are certain combos of magic items and powers that can unbalance things a tad. I think it would be almost impossible to keep so many options totally balanced and be able to catch every conceivable combination. Of course, that leads me to my main beef with 4e; too many supplements! A book a month is a crazy schedule to maintain and they're making TSR look slow in comparison!
Granted, neither I nor my players play like it seems most of the newer generations play; with the implicit intent of having an ber character with maxed everything. My method of character generation is pick a class, pick a cool weapon, and choose a few powers that I think fit his idea or look cool.

I've also never seen or witnessed what was so "broken" about 3e that people keep whining about on other boards. Granted we never got past level 11 or 12, but what we played certainly seemed fine to us. Again, we didn't min/max our characters because that's not really our style, so maybe that's why we didn't encounter it?

I guess my main point in this ramble is that if 3e was the king of mastery, 4e seems to be a step in the opposite direction since magical items aren't nearly as important and their benefits are normally something minor. Having all of the character and powers be of similar power level also reduces the chances of something coming along that's truly broken, but again, I've never witnessed anything "broken" about previous editions either. Just my $0.02!

True, it was not that 4th required more per say, I also was scarred away of Pathfinder because I knew it would be hard for me to master the changes from core 3.x.

For me it is not mastery for making uber characters, but master to run the game smoothly.

As to having players that will play anything. It is a mixed blessing. Yes they will play anything, but they don't get excited about anything either. They will not delve into the rules or the world. If one of them would become a fanboi of something, I would dance in the street...unless it was FATAL of course, then I would disown them.

Wolfram.

[Treebore]

System mastery is promoted by 3E/PF/4E. Why do I feel I can say that? Simply because there is a ton more rules you have to be aware of. More rules/feats/powers to remember means more system mastery is required.

I burnt my brain becoming a system master of 3E, I am sure not going to do it today with 4E.

I'll stick with simpler rules systems to master.

So I can agree all systems require "system mastery", however 3E and 4E require far more of it than C&C or other systems I still like to play, except maybe Shadowrun. That requires a lot of system mastery as well. L5R is up there too.
_________________
The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

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[Sir Ironside]

DaveyB wrote:
To be fair LD, system mastery comes with any game or rules set in general that relies on a similar method of feats, skills, edges, etc.; it's not specific to D&D or RPGs in general. Who among us out there hasn't tried to exploit the rules in a given game or system to gain an advantage; be it a board game, video game, or what have you?

*Raises hand*

I grew up with a heavy diet of AD&D, back when rpg's where just becoming popular. Back then no one I played with tried to exploit the rules, it was more important to us to build a character that we wanted to play, not just RAW but infusing things like look, feel, personality etc. Not all of us wanted to play that massive Uber muscular fighter or any other kind of character tropes that games like D&D 4e try to shoe horn you into playing. We left it up to the DM to balance the game around our characters not have the characters balanced to run around the DM's campaign. I think that is becoming a lost art.

Quote:
Having played and DM'ed 4e for a long time, I feel it unfair to say that 4e promotes mastery more-so than any other edition. It's really hard to one-up someone else the way the system is balanced to make everyone play on a level field; although apparently, from what I've read on other boards, there are certain combos of magic items and powers that can unbalance things a tad. I think it would be almost impossible to keep so many options totally balanced and be able to catch every conceivable combination. Of course, that leads me to my main beef with 4e; too many supplements! A book a month is a crazy schedule to maintain and they're making TSR look slow in comparison!

See answer above for balance issues. Your kind of supporting my opinion.

As, far as WoTC's release rate, it is actually lower than the 2e stuff. They used to flood the market with all sorts of campaigns, worlds, modules every month. In comparison it makes WoTC's schedule look down right slow.

Quote:
Granted, neither I nor my players play like it seems most of the newer generations play; with the implicit intent of having an ber character with maxed everything. My method of character generation is pick a class, pick a cool weapon, and choose a few powers that I think fit his idea or look cool.

I've also never seen or witnessed what was so "broken" about 3e that people keep whining about on other boards. Granted we never got past level 11 or 12, but what we played certainly seemed fine to us. Again, we didn't min/max our characters because that's not really our style, so maybe that's why we didn't encounter it?

Well there was a lot of legitimate complaints. I don't know your style of play, but either you accepted the faults or house ruled some of the rules away.

You answered your own question.

Quote:
I guess my main point in this ramble is that if 3e was the king of mastery, 4e seems to be a step in the opposite direction since magical items aren't nearly as important and their benefits are normally something minor. Having all of the character and powers be of similar power level also reduces the chances of something coming along that's truly broken, but again, I've never witnessed anything "broken" about previous editions either. Just my $0.02!

Personal experience does not invalidate legitimate complaints, that there were a lot of and most of them were true.

I really think this paragraph really separates us old grognards for the newer gamers. This obsession with having balanced everything is one of the things that is taking role-playing out of some games and is melding miniature tabletop warfare that requires zero role playing and 90% tactical play when doing monster encounters. Back in the day, meeting monsters didn't mean, charge and fight every single time, you learned that sometimes that "monster"maybe friendly, indifferent or important to the game beyond killing it and taking their stuff. Which always lead to players trying to figure out how to approach it. Now this wasn't every time, there are always obvious meetings that you know your just suppose to dive in and hack away.

By no means am I saying, "Your playing it wrong." or your having bad/wrong/fun, because obviously you are having fun, which is fantastic. I just do not want to play that way and like a rules set that don't require RAW for absolutely everything you want to do. Having stretchable rules is the way I roll and is one of the reasons that I shy away from 4e.

I've played tabletop miniature warfare and enjoyed it. But when gaming, I like the flow of a game and for every part to be apart of that flow, including monster engagement. I find the switch to miniatures is too jarring and really takes away from the rest of the campaign.

Characters built for fights are not characters I want to play. It really is just as simple as that.
_________________
That is SIR! to you!

[gideon_thorne]

Sir Ironside wrote:
Back in the day, meeting monsters didn't mean, charge and fight every single time, you learned that sometimes that "monster"maybe friendly, indifferent or important to the game beyond killing it and taking their stuff. Which always lead to players trying to figure out how to approach it. Now this wasn't every time, there are always obvious meetings that you know your just suppose to dive in and hack away.

This.

Entirely why I give the same xp for working a way around a critter encounter instead of fighting it head on.
_________________
"We'll go out through the kitchen!" Tanis Half-Elven

Peter Bradley

[serleran]

A shame that the "random encounter" as a tool seems to have evaporated amongst the newer generation of games.
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Serl's Corner

[Lord Dynel]

DaveyB wrote:
To be fair LD, system mastery comes with any game or rules set in general that relies on a similar method of feats, skills, edges, etc.; it's not specific to D&D or RPGs in general. Who among us out there hasn't tried to exploit the rules in a given game or system to gain an advantage; be it a board game, video game, or what have you?

Having played and DM'ed 4e for a long time, I feel it unfair to say that 4e promotes mastery more-so than any other edition. It's really hard to one-up someone else the way the system is balanced to make everyone play on a level field; although apparently, from what I've read on other boards, there are certain combos of magic items and powers that can unbalance things a tad. I think it would be almost impossible to keep so many options totally balanced and be able to catch every conceivable combination. Of course, that leads me to my main beef with 4e; too many supplements! A book a month is a crazy schedule to maintain and they're making TSR look slow in comparison!
Granted, neither I nor my players play like it seems most of the newer generations play; with the implicit intent of having an ber character with maxed everything. My method of character generation is pick a class, pick a cool weapon, and choose a few powers that I think fit his idea or look cool.

I've also never seen or witnessed what was so "broken" about 3e that people keep whining about on other boards. Granted we never got past level 11 or 12, but what we played certainly seemed fine to us. Again, we didn't min/max our characters because that's not really our style, so maybe that's why we didn't encounter it?

I guess my main point in this ramble is that if 3e was the king of mastery, 4e seems to be a step in the opposite direction since magical items aren't nearly as important and their benefits are normally something minor. Having all of the character and powers be of similar power level also reduces the chances of something coming along that's truly broken, but again, I've never witnessed anything "broken" about previous editions either. Just my $0.02!

Well, I wasn't trying to insinuate that 4e promoted system mastery than any other system. I did lump 3e into it, as well. And the discussion was concerning Ironside's decision not to go 4e and go with C&C instead, so I figured the conversation was about 4e and C&C. My apologies if I offended you, Davey, as I was not trying to say that 4e promoted system mastery moreso that other systems out there, just more than it does with C&C.

But I must say...

Quote:
from what I've read on other boards, there are certain combos of magic items and powers that can unbalance things a tad. I think it would be almost impossible to keep so many options totally balanced and be able to catch every conceivable combination. Of course, that leads me to my main beef with 4e; too many supplements!

...that when I think of "system mastery" you kind of hit the nail on the head here, with two very different examples of what system mastery means to me. First, the "combos" - having knowledge of what it the best combo in terms of gear, feats, abilities, etc. is a good example of system mastery. And the multitude of supplements just supposrts this. As with 3e, the supplements that stream out have to have cooler and cooler powers, and eventually they get more powerful than the ones that came before it. Now again, this isn't specific to 4e, so please don't think I'm only picking on4e. I know other systems have done it. But C&C hasn't, which is a good thing!
I have gotten past level 11 and 12 in 3e, and still didn't withess some of the broken components that people copmplain about in 3e. But I can't say they don't exist, only that players I have weren't interested in testing those boundries, for which I am fortunate for.
_________________
LD's C&C creations - the witch, a half-ogre, skill and 0-level rules

Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

[DaveyB]

Treebore wrote:
System mastery is promoted by 3E/PF/4E. Why do I feel I can say that? Simply because there is a ton more rules you have to be aware of. More rules/feats/powers to remember means more system mastery is required.

I burnt my brain becoming a system master of 3E, I am sure not going to do it today with 4E.

I'll stick with simpler rules systems to master.

So I can agree all systems require "system mastery", however 3E and 4E require far more of it than C&C or other systems I still like to play, except maybe Shadowrun. That requires a lot of system mastery as well. L5R is up there too.

True, but one does not have to be a master of the rules to play effectively or have fun with the game, hence why I guess my group never encountered those issues. I agree it's a fault with the d20 system to a degree, but it takes the players to actively seek out those exploits to ruin the game for someone else. I would probably never run into those faults due to the laid-back approach I use in character creation and how we play the game.

[Treebore]

DaveyB wrote:
True, but one does not have to be a master of the rules to play effectively or have fun with the game, hence why I guess my group never encountered those issues. I agree it's a fault with the d20 system to a degree, but it takes the players to actively seek out those exploits to ruin the game for someone else. I would probably never run into those faults due to the laid-back approach I use in character creation and how we play the game.

I agree. For one consider yourself lucky that you do not have players that like to tweak the game for every advantage they can find. I kept running into them.

In general I liked 3E, I just got tired of the rules bloat, especially compounded by higher levels of the game. This is because not only did I have to deal with the base line rules bloat (All the "splat" books I had to decide to allow or disallow) but also the increased rules load that a higher level game brings into it with more access to feats, spells, PrC's, etc....

4E still does the same thing, plus I simply am not a fan of the mechanical changes of the game, so I pretty much stay away from it except for on occasional Game Days.

So I am willing to play 3E, even DM it if the players are willing to stick to just the PH. I will only play 4E, though. I don't like the system near well enough to run it or buy into it more than I have.
_________________
The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

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[DaveyB]

Sir Ironside wrote:
I grew up with a heavy diet of AD&D, back when rpg's where just becoming popular. Back then no one I played with tried to exploit the rules, it was more important to us to build a character that we wanted to play, not just RAW but infusing things like look, feel, personality etc. Not all of us wanted to play that massive Uber muscular fighter or any other kind of character tropes that games like D&D 4e try to shoe horn you into playing. We left it up to the DM to balance the game around our characters not have the characters balanced to run around the DM's campaign. I think that is becoming a lost art.

How does 4e shoe-horn you into anything more-so than any other addition? We have classes and races, the same as any other version of D&D. You now have a skill system and feats and the addition of powers that let your class do some crazy things in combat. I fail to see anything shoe-horning or pigeon-holing about it? If anything the class system shoe-horns you more-so than anything 4e does in particular. The only argument I might agree on is with the wizard in that most of the non-combat spells were removed or turned into rituals, thus making it harder to use more imaginative ways to do things or get around encounters.

Quote:
As, far as WoTC's release rate, it is actually lower than the 2e stuff. They used to flood the market with all sorts of campaigns, worlds, modules every month. In comparison it makes WoTC's schedule look down right slow.

I do remember tons of stuff, but I don't remember stuff coming out every month, but again, that was when I originally got into D&D, so I probably didn't notice it back then.

Quote:
Well there was a lot of legitimate complaints. I don't know your style of play, but either you accepted the faults or house ruled some of the rules away.

I'm sure there were but were it not for the internet, I would not have known about them. We'd never encountered them during play or if we did it must not have bothered us too much. I don't remember anyone house-ruling anything either, but that is not to say the problems didn't exist.

Quote:
I really think this paragraph really separates us old grognards for the newer gamers. This obsession with having balanced everything is one of the things that is taking role-playing out of some games and is melding miniature tabletop warfare that requires zero role playing and 90% tactical play when doing monster encounters. Back in the day, meeting monsters didn't mean, charge and fight every single time, you learned that sometimes that "monster"maybe friendly, indifferent or important to the game beyond killing it and taking their stuff. Which always lead to players trying to figure out how to approach it. Now this wasn't every time, there are always obvious meetings that you know your just suppose to dive in and hack away.

I fail to see how having balanced rules where everyone is on the same power level takes away roleplaying from the game?? Rules are there to adjudicate actions, it's up to the person playing the character how much effort they want to put into roleplaying that persona. 4e's rules set is light compared to 3e's or Pathfinders and allows for a lot more wiggle room as far as rulings and what-not, so if there's a lack of roleplaying, look towards the characters, not the rules. The only detailed rules in 4e are for combat, and even those are simplified beyond what 3e had. Everything else is a skill check or ability check for the most part.

Quote:
By no means am I saying, "Your playing it wrong." or your having bad/wrong/fun, because obviously you are having fun, which is fantastic. I just do not want to play that way and like a rules set that don't require RAW for absolutely everything you want to do. Having stretchable rules is the way I roll and is one of the reasons that I shy away from 4e.

I'm going to go on the assumption here that you've never actually played 4e then, given by the statement I underlined above. 4e's rules set is very stretchable. Example: the first session I ran had a paladin fighting an orc berserker. The orc grappled the paladin (a simple STR vs. REF check) and proceeded to powerbomb him through a nearby wooden cart. The rules do not cover any such action so I went with a quick and dirty 1d6 damage if the paladin didn't escape the grapple (which he didn't) and that he was prone. The DMG's of 4e are very good at trying to get the DM to realize that there's more to the game than combat. Even the PHB has some okay info about RP'ing your character and that your character is more than a lump of stats. Unfortunately that's how most kids today are going to play the game, like a video game where having ber stats is the way to go.

Now I know it sounds like I'm a 4e fanboy, but truth be told it is not my favorite system and I would much rather run C&C than 4e. That being said, 4e is the easiest version of D&D that I've ever DM'ed and could not think of going back to the nightmare of 3e; so if we ever get around to playing D&D again, 4e would be the system we would go with. It's not perfect but for what we need, it fits the bill.

Quote:
I've played tabletop miniature warfare and enjoyed it. But when gaming, I like the flow of a game and for every part to be apart of that flow, including monster engagement. I find the switch to miniatures is too jarring and really takes away from the rest of the campaign.

Characters built for fights are not characters I want to play. It really is just as simple as that.

I will not argue that 4e is very mini-centric. It's one of the things I don't like about it and could not really imagine running the game without some type of marker or token to represent things.

That being said, characters are only built for fights as much as you want them to be. The stats in D&D work both ways. They can be used to resolve combat but they can also be used to resolve non-combat as well. It's always been that way. I see nothing different to how 4e does it as opposed to 2e or 1e, etc. That's be beauty of different editions though, everyone can play what they like!

[Treebore]

One thing that glares at me every time I do play 4E is that everyone has these "different" powers, but strip away the name and look at the mechanical effect, and the powers are identical. I do not like that. Heck, even the spell casters are mechanically very similar to the sword wielders.

Its fundamentally wrong for what I like to play, which is classes that are truly different. So a lot of people may hate "classed" systems like C&C, etc.. however my class is actually different from everyone else's, rather than just wearing different coded powers, but being identical underneath.
_________________
The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

[gideon_thorne]

The imagination can wreck 'balanced' character classes or game systems every time. Folks like me exist as empirical proof of this phenomenon.
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"We'll go out through the kitchen!" Tanis Half-Elven

Peter Bradley

[anglefish]

serleran wrote:
A shame that the "random encounter" as a tool seems to have evaporated amongst the newer generation of games.

Since I'm not sure how you use this tool, I'll agree to disagree on this point for now.

More often than not, I've seen these table used to create random fights as the PCs move towards the next goal. Beyond XP filler, though, they serve no purpose other than to stretch out a game session.

If it's for "realism" then just tell me the road is dangerous and that we might walk into an ambush if we force march. Otherwise, let's move on to the dungeon already, the princess is in danger!

As for my games, a "random" encounter happens when the game gets slow because the players are dragging their feet or at a loss of what to do. i.e. it's my RPG version of the old pulp/Hollywood device of an exciting distraction. i.e. "And then a guy with a gun/ninja with a sword break down the door. What do you do?"

And for that style of play, it's faster to just wing it than roll up something on tables.

Besides, it's a little hard to startle players when they see you rolling stuff up and looking in monster books.

[serleran]

Who said anything about rolling?
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Serl's Corner

[anglefish]

serleran wrote:
Who said anything about rolling?

It would have to do with those numbers to the side of the encounter entry
I think we see "random" encounters the same way.

[DaveyB]

Treebore wrote:
I agree. For one consider yourself lucky that you do not have players that like to tweak the game for every advantage they can find. I kept running into them.

Well, I do have one individual who loves to try and wring every last advantage he can find but I or the other players usually smack him down before he gets rolling. He likes to argue in favor of this and that or dig into the books when things are vague, but after a few minutes of being ignored he just shuts up and continues on.

Quote:
In general I liked 3E, I just got tired of the rules bloat, especially compounded by higher levels of the game. This is because not only did I have to deal with the base line rules bloat (All the "splat" books I had to decide to allow or disallow) but also the increased rules load that a higher level game brings into it with more access to feats, spells, PrC's, etc....

This I can't comment on as I didn't run 3e very much and only played a cleric up to level 11 or 12. I would imagine from what I remember that it probably would be an ordeal to run a higher-level game. The few times I did DM it I remember it being quite the bear.

Quote:
4E still does the same thing, plus I simply am not a fan of the mechanical changes of the game, so I pretty much stay away from it except for on occasional Game Days.

I like some of the changes and dislike others. That said, as the DM, it's a breeze to run and that's mainly what I like about it. I don't have the time to devote to making a huge campaign arc, etc. and 4e's modular encounter design really speeds things up. The monster stats are also nice now that they are not the gigantic, whole-page affairs they were in 3e and apparently in Pathfinder as well. My player's are a mix of "it moved, kill it!", method-actors, and puzzle solvers leaning more towards "it moved, kill it!", so 4e works out well for us. It is certainly not in the same vain as other editions and someday I hope to switch them over to C&C, but I fear that's still some time in coming... [/i]

[DaveyB]

Treebore wrote:
One thing that glares at me every time I do play 4E is that everyone has these "different" powers, but strip away the name and look at the mechanical effect, and the powers are identical. I do not like that. Heck, even the spell casters are mechanically very similar to the sword wielders.

Its fundamentally wrong for what I like to play, which is classes that are truly different. So a lot of people may hate "classed" systems like C&C, etc.. however my class is actually different from everyone else's, rather than just wearing different coded powers, but being identical underneath.

You've found one of my pet peeves about 4e! Yes, the powers are very much the same minus the name, but to me the classes do play differently the times I've actually been a player and not the DM.

I think getting rid of the different sub-systems in the game and unifying them under one mechanic was a mistake, but that's just my opinion, and this may lead to why some people say the classes all feel the same. In actual play though, a fighter feels different from a rogue, etc.

[serleran]

Quote:
I think we see "random" encounters the same way.

Maybe, but I use them when the party is boring me.
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[gideon_thorne]

serleran wrote:
Maybe, but I use them when the party is boring me.

Serleran needs a shirt that says "That's how I don't Roll" with a picture of Schrdinger dice.
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"We'll go out through the kitchen!" Tanis Half-Elven

Peter Bradley

[Sir Ironside]

DaveyB wrote:
How does 4e shoe-horn you into anything more-so than any other addition?



That's be beauty of different editions though, everyone can play what they like!

I normally don't like to snip posts... but in this case I don't need an exhaustive reply.

I am not saying that you can't role-play in 4e, you can role-play with any system as role-playing comes from the players and not the book. But, when the rules don't support active role-playing and concentrate more on something like combat, in comparison to other rules sets, 4e focuses on combat. I have heard some 4e combats last hours. Combat lasting hours is not my cup-of-tea. It isn't wrong and there are much more people who are having a great time doing it.

To put it simply, I'll break it down in percentages. D&D 4e is roughly 70% combat centric and 25% other. I like to play 40 to 35% combat and the rest other. That is a significant difference in percentages. Add, the need for mini's, maps, terrain etc. It falls even further away from what I like.

Having an obsession with balanced rules means, almost demands that you play the rpg as RAW. Your notion of stretchable rules is probably not what I think stretchable rules are. With games like OD&D or AD&D and others the unbalanced classes where hardly a problem and I hardly heard any complaints because we had groups that compensated, naturally, for the difference. We didn't need level challenge numbers, we could throw a dragon at 1st level characters without batting a eye. It was up to the players to decide if their character does something stupid or something smart to determine the outcome. The shoehorn comes in with all the talk about "defenders", "leaders" and whatever else they are classifying "fighters", "magic-users" etc. Modules run in 4e tell you what you need to run the game successfully, in my day the players could all roll up four magic-users, or two thieves, a Paladin and a bard, and it could all be used for the same adventure. Much more flexible than it is now.

I'll say it again, there is nothing wrong with 4e as it is played. But, there are things it turned away from and other areas the focused more on. And, to suggest it does things just as well as past games is disingenuous and trying to argue that 4e is the end all be end all of rpg's. Its not and it is weak in places and strong in other places... just like any other rpg.
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