4th edition - rumours and discussion and so on

Remove all ads!

4 ed. has or hasn't removed features that duplicate bluff, diplomacy, intimidate or sense motive (from what I understand, there are no more Skills)?

Those skills, as much as some people hated that aspect of the game being mechanized, I think put a real focus on non-combat solutions to problems. In exalted campaigns, the focus was actually on over coming problems through the most peaceful solutions possible and diplomacy became far more important then your attack bonus. It was fun to have ways to guarantee that clever or charming characters could be just as effective as spell slingers and sword slingers without having to rely on the DM's mercy.

3 ed was the big Leibnizian world system of D+D.

 

ok, check out pg 78 of the players handbook fighter utility power "get over here" (were they playing to much mortal kombat?)
hp's are a joke now. a fighter that starst with an 18 con & puts every point he can into con ends up at 26 con but you don't gain extra hp from per level from con. so at level 30 you have 215 hp. that level 30 red dragon has 1,390 plus other creatures helping him. HOLY CRAP!

@ ilmater's suffering, bluff, diplomacy & intimidate are still there

 

Indeed, Martaug, indeed. They seriously upped monster hp. Up to the point an ordinary Mind Flayer has over 300. Fragile, super intelligent schemers, eh?

 

Yeah fragile like a block of granite! Have you looked at the standard lvl 18 mindflayer enctr? 1 L18 mindflayer(324hp), 1 L14 mindlfayer(107hp),2 L14 wartrolls(110hp each) & 3 L22 grimlock minions(1 hp each)

i just wish players had a way to gain 217 hp over 4 levels like mindflayers.(can we say unbalanced?)

And no multiclassing. you can take a feat to get a power from another class & then you can take class specific feats from that class but thats it.

 

Well, HP work a bit differently now. You get Healing Surges that refill a part of your HP. Fighters get more surges, non-fighters less. They can be triggered by a Second Wind once per encounter and through various other means (Healing spells, Warlord encouragements). You could say the are 'parceled'.

 

This sounds lamer and lamer the more I hear about it. Seems like they actually managed to ruin d&d.

 

it is basically a cross between magic & d&d minis. they even recommend that you make an a "stat card" for each monster you are going to use in an encounter.

Don't plan on being too diverse either at 10th level you have 2 at-will powers, 3 per encounter powers, 3 daily powers & 3 daily utility powers. thats it. oh yeah those daily powers wizards get to choose from 5 spells at 1st level & 4 new spells at 5th level.

 

If there's a site with this information, it may be worth looking at to see if it's worth the money to buy the books or just stick with 3.5.

I know that my money is tight right now, and the situation may not improve any time soon...

 

The new alignment system is definitely beyond terrible. Why has Chaotic Good become Good and Lawful Evil become Evil? And for the love of god, why to they waste two pages telling me how I should build my character's personality? It is painfully obvious that they have no interest in recruiting actual RPers.

Why does a fireball now have an attack roll accompany it? And why is everything "half your level plus appropriate ability score"?!

Ohhh, so many things I so badly want to critique.

And oh my god, why is everyone so tall! Average human height 5'6"-6'2"? Halfling 3'10"-4'2"? What? Elf 5'4"-6'0"?

 

I take it you missed the biggest dumbing down move Ilmater's Suffering? Unless you use a feat that grants an extra attack everybody gets 1 attack per round. the level 5 daily spell fireball does 3d6+Int mod damage, thats it. It doesn't go up, ever. The level 29 daily spell meteor swarm 8d6+Int mod damage, a spell cast by a 29th level character! Oh & you only have 4 daily powers at 29th level. So much for wizards having a varied spellbook

 

You can retrain powers, so lack of advancement is not a great problem. But if you liked your fireball, your frakked. At level 20, it will only be effective against minions (who only have 1 hp, regardless of level).

Spell versitality comes through rituals. They cost money, though.

 

Spell rituals are ok however the quickest take 10 minutes to cast & most are at least an hour. The part about daily powers that bothered me was that you can't even know more than 4 ! At 30th level you have 17 spells(2 at-will/4 per enc/4 daily/7 daily utility) of which 11 you only get to use once per day. As opposed to a 3.5 L20 wizard with no bonus spells who has 36 daily spells(& whose spells look like they are gonna do a crapload more damage).

haha, it's funny, i'm complaining about the magic classes getting nerfed and i don't even play them.

 

I have been reading the phb abit today. It leaked online. I wasn`t going to buy it anyway, nor sue it, so I don`t consider it a theft. But damn. It doesn`t look like d&d at all. Looks like world of warcraft bigtime. Kind of reminds me of a board game also. Mix between magic the gathering, and world of warcraft maybe. Might be fun by itself, but its certainly not a roleplaying game.

 

yeah the only resemblance to old d&d is the Name of some of the classes & races.
In a way i'm glad gygax didn't live to see this nonsense come out, IMHO, i feel he would have been disappointted

 

I see your point there Talauntain. But I do have about 30 rpg books, wich I have bought. For 3.5 ed, mind you. So I won`t be playing 4th ed in any case. I just got it to have a look at it.


And I am not in any way suggesting that others should do the same.

 

Interestingly, the people at Story Games (forum of hippie-indie-gamers, generally dislike D&D and most traditional systems) seem to like it. It is (apparently) a coherent gamist system that keeps its focus on killing things awesomely. Of course, those who were playing it for other reasons aren't going to like it.

Apparently the advice in the DMG is also really good.

 

I will likely buy the books, but I just can't do it right now with the lack of income and increase in expenses. I like what I'm seeing so far. I still think that 3.5 was better and more complete, but if you look at 4th as a new game, it has the chance to be an interesting game to play.

 

There doesnt seem to be a consistant logic behind moster hps even in a race!
Goblin Hexer (L3 leader con14 46hp) & Goblin Underboss (L4 leader con15 110hp) how the heck do you have 54 extra hp in just 1 level?