Initial Thoughts: D&D 4th Edition

[Argonnite]

Locals scoffed at me when I tried getting them to upgrade from Spycraft 1ed to 2.0.  Ah well...

Was that for any particular reason or just because they didn't want to switch?

Various reasons for various people:

No official Martial Artist (even though he's aware you could mechanically make one)
Books weren't available and interest waned
A local convention organizer claims he got burned by LSPY managers during 1st ed
No more LSPY
Too complicated
So many more missions available for 1st ed

I suspect there are many more others but they didn't want to offend me.

I will say though that two of my FLGS sold out their stock of Spycraft 2.0 core rules but I don't see any Spycraft activity in their game rooms or BBSes.

[Gatac]

Unqualified opinion: What I saw of the previews looked like a serious effort to standardize many basic concepts, which did give me the occasional Spycraft flashback. (Especially the various at-will abilities seem to read a lot like Tricks to me.) So, from that angle, it looks somewhat interesting.

I can take or leave fluff, so that's not a big problem for me.

Saving Throws as Defenses is cool, especially since they dumped the conflation of AC and Reflex defense that was in Star Wars SAGA. I honestly like this and wouldn't mind seeing it in Spycraft 3.0.

Anyway, while what I've seen doesn't put me off, I don't care about D&D all that much - d20-based CRPGs aside. That may be because my general interest in fantasy roleplaying tends towards nil, with judicious use of Savage Worlds and Unknown Armies picking up the "What will I run this with?" slack when I do get the itch. In contrast, I will buy FantasyCraft...if only to rip out new mechanics and adapt them for modern gaming.

(Though honestly, at this stage the "Must support Crafty" imperative is running deep enough that I'd buy a Crafty Games travel guide to Antarctica.)

Gatac

And at some point I'll run another Wushu game...

[Mister Andersen]

Saving Throws as Defenses is cool, especially since they dumped the conflation of AC and Reflex defense that was in Star Wars SAGA.

See, I liked the way Saga did it as no AC and just the tree defences. Made a lot more sense than 4th ed's implementation. It was so muc more elegant.

[waterdhavian]

Hey people,

I played through a demo this past Sunday.  Here are my sleep deprived ramblings that I posted to my current gaming group...

DISCLAIMER: Only my opinion, please do not be offended.

I played through a demo on Sunday.  I was not overly impressed by the system. It might have just been the demo or the GM.  The demo was fairly straight forward and pregens were given to the players.  We had a party of five, two "Strikers", two "Defenders", and one "Leader".  Strikers were a half-elf Rogue and an Eladrin Wizard.  The Defenders were a Dwarven fighter and human fighter.  I played the "Leader" who was a cleric.  I looked over my sheet and had only offensive combat powers as my daily, encounter and at will.  No sign of heal spells or abilities other than ones that activated others healing surges.  I had no access to any rituals or any utility ability, we really didnt get into anything that really needed them but it would have been nice to have along.

I thought the wizard was going to rock the house with his at will magic.  Nearly everytime he rolled to hit with magic missile he missed, other spells were effective but not overly so.  The Fighters did some cool attacks but I felt that every player is going to have to know their characters a whole lot better and a GM is going to have to keep track of alot more information.  At-Will powers for Fighters were fun, mostly updates on feats like cleave, a few others that had some utility while fighting a specific type of creature or against a single foe or many.  Many of the abilities have a status effect that is either persistent or ends at the end of a round.  Combat went slower than any 3.0/3.5 demo I ever ran in.  By simplifying they added a bunch of abilities that have damage for hits, damage for misses, ongoing damage for hits and yes, sometimes for misses.

The players running the fighters were having a good time, they liked all the new options to them but found themselves stumbling at each combat to find the best power.  Again, with time I am sure a player will know what power to use when, quickly.

The wizard was essentially a magic missile launcher, as most other spells he had were close burst or cone like, meaning he had to get into combat and not sit in the back.  I could tell the guy was frustrated when some of his more interesting spells had to be cast on an enemy adjacent to his square yet these were "area effects".  At one point he stopped using Magic Missile because the thing we were fighting had a ridiculous reflex save so he used a dagger instead and threw it to attack its AC.

The rogue could sneak attack anything, if he had "combat advantage."  OH he also had psionic abilities like EYE BITE!  Cause you know when I think of rogues I think of psionics...I was teasing my buddy cause the flavor text for his Eye Bite said his eyes flashed with light, so I called him a Goa'uld.  I didn't know half-elves had snakes in their heads???  Thievery covered pickpocket, open lock, disable device and thief stuff.  He had a few cool powers but most required him to be at advantage or in simpler terms flanking.

I really don't like static saves.  Reflex, Fortitude and Will were all static numbers and others must target your particular defense.  I think its a good concept but I like being in control of my own saves.  Especially when you are asked to make a save.  I couldn't wrap my mind around that.  These three are now defenses and when asked to make a save it was a straight d20 roll.  The save was to determine if ongoing effects continued.  This is what really made me think mini's.  In D&D minis and Star Wars minis, saves are universal, usually 11+ is the target.  So instead of the spell or effect targeting one of your defenses the next round like it did initially you roll to see if it stops on an unmodified die.

I think I was the most upset in the group.  My Cleric was a Battle Cleric.  Every ability I had was combat related and more specifically were all damage dealers.  From what I understand the character was built as a battle cleric and there are more options.  The only "buff" I had was a power than allowed others or myself to activate a healing surge plus a modified die.  I could use it twice per encounter, yet I couldn't just heal or cure damage.  It all weighed on the amount of healing surges characters had.  out of combat you could use as many as you wanted but in combat you can only use one unless an ability granted you one, like my clerics ability.

Combat requires a mat.  There is no way to try and visualize all the combat with all the wacky advantage and targeting.  4.0 should be packaged with its own whiteboard and markers for all the types of damage and ongoing effects.  Every player is gonna want to laminate their character sheet so they can use wet erase markers to keep track of all the junk going on.

WOTC wanted to get all classes more involved with combat, but I think it resulted in everyone participating in the same type of combat.  I was only given a look at the system though and not a full read through.  I am certain there are other things you can do without having to get into base to base combat, but for alot of my cleric's abilities I had to base my enemy.  Hell even Turning was a damn near base to base ability.  Its a small burst so essentially 10ft burst centered on me.  Not horrible, but seeing that 3.5 had a range of 60ft, it was kinda laughable.  I had to walk up to the ghost and nearly touch the thing to turn it, which only caused damage, I think I "turned" a few skeletons too but just caused damage and pushed them back rather than destroying them.  I was only 1st level but it didn't seem that I could just nuke undead at higher levels.

Renaming things for the sake of renaming it is a wonderful way to get you to think its a brand new idea, totally justifies the new edition.   Range and movement in squares is annoying and everyone at the table kept referring to feet.  I swear I heard the GM and store manager say "Cube" on more than one occasion, in reference to a spells effect or for targeting.  How is square complicated?  I always had problems with geometry and I can figure out how to target squares, the only Cubes I should hear about while talking about an RPG are the ones for my drink and the gelatinous ones!

Everyone by the end of the night still werent sure about some rules, but I think thats due to our GM.  I came away from the event having fun as did everyone else.  I think that by simplifying they made other things complicated.  We had fun which is the purpose of these games, but I am gonna have to try this edition again and get a little deeper in the rules before I can really say what I think.  So far, its interesting but not something I really like.  I'm happy with 3.5.

I say I am happy with 3.5, but in reality I can see some changes I would make.  One thing that stuck me like a cattle prod while playing was that our GM used poker chips to symbolize our healing surges.  I don't know if this is core rules or the GM made it up, but he used them as bargaining devices.  He would let us exchange one for something else.  I looked over to my buddy and said "Gee, I know this other game where action points can be turned in to do basically everything and anything."  Action points in 4e only being used once per encounter bah!  I felt like a grognard the entire game...

[LordKruelos]

Good to hear this stuff.  I'm planning on running a 1-shot to try it out this Thursday and am pointedly avoiding any of the WOTC-made "adventures" at this point.  We'll see how it looks in actual play and I'll post my updated thoughts after that.

[Psion]

Strikers were a half-elf Rogue and an Eladrin Wizard.

Er, Warlock is a Striker, Wizard is a Controller.

We now return you to your thread in progress.

[waterdhavian]

Strikers were a half-elf Rogue and an Eladrin Wizard.

Er, Warlock is a Striker, Wizard is a Controller.

We now return you to your thread in progress.

Ah, thank you Psion,  like I hinted at, our GM wasn't the best person to sell this game to us.

[waterdhavian]

Good to hear this stuff.  I'm planning on running a 1-shot to try it out this Thursday and am pointedly avoiding any of the WOTC-made "adventures" at this point.  We'll see how it looks in actual play and I'll post my updated thoughts after that.

I would strongly suggest not using WOTC's pre-gens.  And since there are several paths classes can take I would suggest having a few of the same class but different paths so players can pick up something they find interesting but not arresting.

[Bill Whitmore]

We played our first game last night and I wasn't all that impressed.  Don't get me wrong, I had fun, but that had more to do with the people sitting around the table than the game.

Mechanically, there are a lot of little things that bug me.

1) The aforementioned encouragement of having dump stats.

2) Diagonal meaaurements still only cost 1 point per square.  A 30 foot (oh wait, 6 square) circle (sphere) looks a lot like a square (cube) on the map.

3) Listing ranges in squares instead of feet.  I could probably get used to these, but it took me a while to see that daggers could be thrown at someone further away than the guy 2 spaces away since I read 5/10 as 5 feet/10 feet.

4) You add 1/2 level to EVERYTHING.  Every even level you need to update EVERY SINGLE entry on the fricking character sheet.  Annoying.  And...

5) Since you add 1/2 level to attacks and defenses, it becomes a nearly meaningless number.  At first level I am adding +5 to hit a guy who has a 16 AC.  All other things being the same, 10th level I am adding +10 to hit someone who now has a 21 AC.  Hey, look at that, nothing really changed.

6) Even tables, barstools and chandeliers level up with you.  A first level character has a lower DC to swing from a chandelier, vault over a bar counter or flip a table over his companions head to provide cover than the 10th level guy.  You can never really get better at these things without getting a trained skill or focus.

7) Multi-classing sucks.  I don't know how else to put this, really.  I miss the ability to mix and match classes.  Rather than fix one of the best thing of 3rd ed, they just scrapped it altogether.  *sigh*

There are some things I really like in 4th ed, like Healing Surges, Class Powers...um, hmm, ok, Healing Surges and Class Powers.  But there are too many little niggling things about it that make it feel unpolished and incomplete.

Incidentally, next week we are going back to 3.5.  We may continue to play this from time to time but it isn't my first choice for fantasy gaming.

[ThunderMonkey]

6) Even tables, barstools and chandeliers level up with you.  A first level character has a lower DC to swing from a chandelier, vault over a bar counter or flip a table over his companions head to provide cover than the 10th level guy.  You can never really get better at these things without getting a trained skill or focus.

That has to be about the dumbest thing (leveling inanimate objects) I've seen for a RPG since the Cyberknight (from RIFTS).

[waterdhavian]

6) Even tables, barstools and chandeliers level up with you.  A first level character has a lower DC to swing from a chandelier, vault over a bar counter or flip a table over his companions head to provide cover than the 10th level guy.  You can never really get better at these things without getting a trained skill or focus.

That has to be about the dumbest thing (leveling inanimate objects) I've seen for a RPG since the Cyberknight (from RIFTS).

I'm the type of GM and PC that loves skills.  I could care less about combat most of the time.  From my first encounter with this system I feel that skills will be under utilized. 

In my 3.5 game I play in, I have a thief-acrobat that has high skills and mastery so he can do the impossible everyday without breaking a sweat.  I'm of the mind that when you level up and get far more experienced you should be able to use a skill with ease.

A 1st level swashbuckler-type might grab a chandelier's support rope and cut it and swing to the staircase as the chandelier comes crashing down on some mooks.

A 10th level swashbuckler-type should be able to jump off a balcony, grab the chandelier in mid air and swing to the bar without spilling a drip of his beverage.

[ThunderMonkey]

I'm the type of GM and PC that loves skills.  I could care less about combat most of the time.  From my first encounter with this system I feel that skills will be under utilized. 

In my 3.5 game I play in, I have a thief-acrobat that has high skills and mastery so he can do the impossible everyday without breaking a sweat.  I'm of the mind that when you level up and get far more experienced you should be able to use a skill with ease.

A 1st level swashbuckler-type might grab a chandelier's support rope and cut it and swing to the staircase as the chandelier comes crashing down on some mooks.

A 10th level swashbuckler-type should be able to jump off a balcony, grab the chandelier in mid air and swing to the bar without spilling a drip of his beverage.

Don't get me wrong... I love skills myself. It seems rather limiting that 10th level has to make kind of roll to accomplish the same task a 1st level wants to do.

You're right... It should scale better than what's given.

[waterdhavian]

I agree with you there.  Thats totally ridiculous.

[Argonnite]

6) Even tables, barstools and chandeliers level up with you.  A first level character has a lower DC to swing from a chandelier, vault over a bar counter or flip a table over his companions head to provide cover than the 10th level guy.  You can never really get better at these things without getting a trained skill or focus.

That has to be about the dumbest thing (leveling inanimate objects) I've seen for a RPG since the Cyberknight (from RIFTS).

Heh.  Reminds me of the DCs as a function of TLs in many LSPY modules.

[TheTSKoala]

Hey.. just because jumping over a 2 foot wall might SEEM easy to a level 10 Ninja.. doesn't mean it is!  Oh.. as for the skill thing.. yeah... I remember in 3.5, I hit level 10, the only thing I ever had to roll on was Disable Device and Pick Lock.  Everything else, unless I rolled a 1, I did.