1st Quarter Post - Where We At ??

[awaken DM golem]

We're three months in to 4th Edition. How are you feeling about the game?

I'm starting to get a feel for 4th Edition, and CO stuff. Here's my thoughts:

(1) ... The D&D site CO-board is not sufficiently isolated from the don't-know-the-rules crowd.    
(2) ... It is D&D, but it is different. 1stEd on up to 3.5Ed are more similar among each other, than to 4E.  :monocle
(3) ... Errata Hall Of Fame - CO so nasty they actually already nerfed it.

Don't they remember Staff of Wish, PunPun, Omni, Blingy ?! Whimper, where's my errata? 

(4) ... 3.5Ed is basically Epic level and Trans-Epic level, in 4E terms (give or take). True Strike ?! Charm Person ?!  :fan
(5) ... The old CO-board averaged 5 pages a day, before Surreal's Ask thread knocked it down to 3, and The End brought that below 2. Even with the fiasco here at the very end, the new game doesn't have that much traffic yet, and I'm not sure why. Maybe the older hands (me included) are having a bit more trouble with the transition?  :study
(6) ... TO-board material hasn't really popped up yet. But it will. They aren't gonna stop publishing stuff. We'll get it. 




What do you think?

[X-Codes]

I like it and my gaming group likes it.  There are lots of pros/cons between 3.5e and 4e when you play at a real table, but on VTT the games ALWAYS go slower, and the fact that 4e encounters take significantly less time than 3.5e encounters (or, at the very least, FEEL like they take significantly less time) makes it, IMO, plain superior on the VTT front, and with all the ideas like DDI and such I think that's what the developers were really going for.

I think once we get more splatbooks out and a wider diversity of characters everyone will slowly be able to transition from 3.5e to 4e without hard feelings.  I think it will be about this time next year that 3.5 games really start becoming obscure.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

DDI's still a myth, and the bonus tools are still PHB only.  I'm still waiting for the new crunch to be about, and the game's as buggy as hell.

I like it.  But I'm disappointed.

[X-Codes]

DDI's still a myth, and the bonus tools are still PHB only.  I'm still waiting for the new crunch to be about, and the game's as buggy as hell.

I like it.  But I'm disappointed.

I didn't say DDI was anything more than an utter pile of crap, but 4e runs about as smooth on MapTool as 3.5e does, but you have to consider the fact that MapTool is pretty much custom-made for 3.5e.  Once some tweaks are made to make it more 4e friendly it'll work a lot better overall.

If you had a more open-ended VTT like OpenRPG (just not the most recent version) then 4e would absolutely run smoother on it than 3.5e.

Basically, just because WotC intended to make 4e more VTT friendly and then reap the profits of making their own VTT software doesn't mean that the failure of their VTT software is a failure to make 4e more VTT friendly.

[Omen of Peace]

I play a lot by PbP : combats are extremely slow there anyway, so I still prefer 3.5E. 4E is definitely more streamlined... but I am still disappointed by it. I bought the core books but I don't know if I'll buy more.

[Eepop]

I am loving it, but I've got a play group that plays in person every week.  And we have 3-4 people fighting to DM at a time.


Is it perfect? Hardly. 

I still feel a bit closed in as far as options go, but I'm hoping for that to subside once we start getting some more books.  I'm pretty excited for instance about getting a whole new class and another warlock path in the FR books. And the online articles are slowly regaining my trust, even if they do require a close eye balance wise.

We're also not exactly happy with the striker balance, but hopefully errata or splats will boost warlocks up to ranger level and pull rogues down to ranger level.

[Alpha]

Remember that warlocks are also better controllers than rogues or rangers.

[anomalousman]

I'm DMing 4e on PbP and tabletop. 

In tabletop, I find combats take a similar time on both (less rounds in 3e, faster rounds in 4e but more of them).  The faster cycle in 4e is more enjoyable, though.

For PbP, the limitation isn't planning the move, it's waiting for the next person to post.  So 4e combat is slower in 4e I have found.

I find I'm enjoying the relative lack of obscene brokenness in core 4e over core 3.5e.  I'm hoping our campaigns won't founder around level 15 like all the 3e capaigns I've ever played have done.  I can visualise how 3.5e might work well at high level, but I've never seen it in reality.

[Todd]

We're three months in to 4th Edition. How are you feeling about the game?

I'm starting to get a feel for 4th Edition, and CO stuff. Here's my thoughts:

(1) ... The D&D site CO-board is not sufficiently isolated from the don't-know-the-rules crowd.    
(2) ... It is D&D, but it is different. 1stEd on up to 3.5Ed are more similar among each other, than to 4E.  :monocle
(3) ... Errata Hall Of Fame - CO so nasty they actually already nerfed it.

Don't they remember Staff of Wish, PunPun, Omni, Blingy ?! Whimper, where's my errata? 

(4) ... 3.5Ed is basically Epic level and Trans-Epic level, in 4E terms (give or take). True Strike ?! Charm Person ?!  :fan
(5) ... The old CO-board averaged 5 pages a day, before Surreal's Ask thread knocked it down to 3, and The End brought that below 2. Even with the fiasco here at the very end, the new game doesn't have that much traffic yet, and I'm not sure why. Maybe the older hands (me included) are having a bit more trouble with the transition?  :study
(6) ... TO-board material hasn't really popped up yet. But it will. They aren't gonna stop publishing stuff. We'll get it. 




What do you think?

Overall I like 4e.  I don’t have the problem with combat speed at all & I’ve both run and played multiple sessions.  The biggest impediment to speed is familiarity.  If folks keep having to look stuff up it slows things to a CRAWL.  My answer has been to print out combat cards when I run games.  Having all your powers with final numbers on them in front of you during the game really helps.  Overall I find combats having many more rounds … but taking roughly the same time or less to finish.  That’s good because it means that everyone is getting to do more stuff in every fight … and more meaningful stuff too.

My biggest dislike with 4e at this point is the wealth & treasure side.  I understand why the scaling pricing helps keep treasure on track for level I just find it silly.

To address your points.

1.  Agree.
2.  Agree.
3. They haven’t gotten to everything really broken yet.  Overall I like the aggressive errata but it’s to the point where I want a new version of the PhB with the errata built in.  This is especially true of the one group I play with that doesn’t tend to use errata much.
4. Sort of.  I think that 4e went a bit far in getting away from some of the long standing effects you mention.  I understand why they thought save-or-die had to be changed & huge bonus things are gone … but I still feel that they could have found another way.
5. There just isn’t as much need for optimization in 4e yet.  Elsewhere it’s been pointed out that in 3e most of your decision points came in character building, not in actual game play unless you were a wizard or cleric.  In 4e it’s the reverse.  You don’t have many build options but most of the powers are pretty flexible giving you many more in game options.  While there will always be a need for some actual build optimization, in 4e that need is much lower … and the boards haven’t really made the leap to party optimization, tactical optimization, and even individual power optimization that I think 4e encourages.
6.  Probably right.

[brislove]

I love 4e. I want more options, which will come with time. I have long since built all the character builds that I was interested in making, and even some I wasn't lol.

I'm DMing 4e. I will never DM 3.5 again. I am still playing 3.5, and would play 3.5 again.

I love the fact that they are nerfing/fixing things. It's obvious that they are trying to balance the game, and keep it balanced. mistakes were made, but they are working hard to fix them.

faq/errata is updated frequently and actually clarifies and/or fixes problems. They are trying to tighten their hold on D&D's niche, BALANCED Action adventure tactical combat RPG.  3.5 was more balanced then many systems, 4e is actually VERY well balanced.

I like action adventure, bad guy killing tactical games, with backround story, moral choices and decisions that effect the dynamics of the world. This is what D&D is to me. 4e does it better then 3.5 imo.

[Kuroimaken]

To be frank, right now, for me 3.5 and 4e are akin to sex and masturbation, in that order.

Sex is more fulfilling, you have more options, and you can do ALMOST everything you want as long as it's logistically and physically possible, and you get your partner to agree.

Masturbation is repetitive, may end faster, and there are very few ways to do it, but you don't have love quarrels.

...Granted the analogy isn't very precise, but everyone has pretty much already noted the most important points.

That said, my biggest beef with 4e is that although we now have the ILLUSION that every class has as many options as the next, this turns out to be patently untrue. A Level 1 Wizard has the option to reliably push a target away or slow him/her down, all day long, in the nude. A Fighter of the same level can bash people over the head, and that's about it -- he just has different ways to do it, and if he's devoid of any ass-kicking implement, he's screwed. Similarly, a Warlock and a Ranger suffer from the same problem, and the ranger also has to deal with the possibility of running out of arrows.

[Anders Rasmussen]

I haven't played 4E, or even read all the rule-books - so I might be wrong.

But when the first CO-news about 4E it was all "team-optimization is the main thing in 4E", and standing at the sideline of the boards, it don't seem to me that there is that heavy a focus at team work? CO-talk still mostly concern "what can I do with MY character".

Soo, (if I'm right) Why is that?

[brislove]

making entire parties to optimize each other is a lot of work?

[Banor]

Actually there was a lot of work to optimize Blood Pulse which is mainly a team effort but yea it's quite hard to fully optimize a whole party

[Omen of Peace]

I've seen quite a bit of Party Op done... unfortunately it tends to be geared towards overpowered combos, like 2 Wizards with Prismatic Spray + Doomsayer + Taclord(s)...

[DemonLord57]

I think the biggest reason is that you generally aren't optimizing more than your own character. Another reason is that it's hard to make such optimizations beyond certain combos, beyond simply optimizing both individually. (looking at everything available for two characters and how they would interact is hard...)

[awaken DM golem]

...
team-optimization
... (versus) ...
 MY character
...

There's a whole lot less variables in Fighter 2a vs. Fighter 2b choice optimizing, than taking in everything.
Warlords are almost entirely designed around working with the party.

The 1st big topic was beating Orcus, even before the official release of the game.
With its' nerf, it is now a team opt.

Solo PCs have an initiative problem vs. most any group of monsters, i.e. might be dead.
"WE" are getting the low hanging fruit now. The boards will turn up trickier tricks soon enough.

[DemonLord57]

...
team-optimization
... (versus) ...
 MY character
...

There's a whole lot less variables in Fighter 2a vs. Fighter 2b choice optimizing, than taking in everything.

Hmm, sort of. I actually think that interestingly you are able to have completely different abilities by picking different powers. Unfortunately, multiclassing leads to less all-around differences/combinations, and most of the choices are clear.

Warlords are almost entirely designed around working with the party.

And are awesome! I've been thinking about how a number of Leaders like Warlords would work out in a party. A single Taclord gives +Int mod to init, +Int/2 when spending AP, (I believe the AP spending thing stacks, actually) and healing. If you get more bonuses to other parts of the game (perhaps just a large number of Warlord types) and/or lots of cool buffing, then you may be able make everyone in the party a complete beast. It depends on the Leaders that come out.

The 1st big topic was beating Orcus, even before the official release of the game.
With its' nerf, it is now a team opt.

Actually, SoB+Divine Regen and something like WoF or WoI are good enough for Soloing him still. Party makes it much easier and more likely, and lets you not die to other people, though.

Solo PCs have an initiative problem vs. most any group of monsters, i.e. might be dead.
"WE" are getting the low hanging fruit now. The boards will turn up trickier tricks soon enough.

I agree.

[awaken DM golem]

I love the fact that they are nerfing/fixing things. It's obvious that they are trying to balance the game, and keep it balanced. mistakes were made, but they are working hard to fix them.

I don't love love it.
I noticed that some of the various levels have just 3 choices of spells.
They can always fit new stuff into the more limited choices *zones,
keeping balance and upgrading the weak stuff, that way.

Microsoft Windows didn't get any smaller.
Microsoft Vista doesn't get any smaller.
Heh ... 

[Alpha]

But when the first CO-news about 4E it was all "team-optimization is the main thing in 4E", and standing at the sideline of the boards, it don't seem to me that there is that heavy a focus at team work? CO-talk still mostly concern "what can I do with MY character".

1.  Agreed with what others have said(it's tough, and you usually don't have so much control over the other party members anyway).

2.  The complexity of party optimization is going to require that experience lead the way.  Trying to predict how a warlord/cleric will help a wizard in the long-term is very hard to do, as there are so many variables involved(party coordination/op is, in my opinion, a largely tactical experience).
Easier is simply playing through a campaign and watching carefully to see what effect the warlord HAD on the wizard/rogue/fighter.
In other words, when more optimizers have been able to gauge the effect of party interaction through actual play, they will start to have more party-op ideas, and those will show up in the boards.
So check back next quarter, or the quarter after