The Campaign Builder's Guild

[note]I know D&D isn't quite the favored system on these boards. The CBG did begin on the WotC boards, and try as I might my own game mentality always brings me back to D&D. I've tried to get away from it, but it's proved to be a fruitless endeavour. Rather than fighting it, I'm choosing to embrace it. Maybe, someday, I'll make my own system, but for now I'm going to get back to my houseruling roots. I wrote this essay as a way to focus my thoughts, to give me direction in my process. I'm still waffling on whether I want to import D&D4E ideas to 3E (something I could do and possibly sell legally), or whether I want to import 3E ideas to 4E (I won't be able to sell it, but I might enjoy it more).

Please, contribute any and all of your thoughts.[/note]As a fan of 4th Edition D&D, it is difficult for me to understand what some fans of 3E didn't like about it. Was it simply a resistance to change? Was it something superficial, such as a dislike of certain terms? Was it a dislike of a perceived "sameiness" between different characters? Was it a dislike of rigid powers, or even the use of powers by non-magical characters? Was it anger at having one's favorite class reduced in power?

Because I cannot sit still, I want to work on my own version of D&D before I move on to making my own system; my RPG style suits D&D, and I don't feel like moving on to a different kind of system. But as I like to live in a land of hopes and dreams, I want to make a system that can appeal to fans of 3E and 4E alike. In order to do that, I need to understand the differences, and similarities, between the two systems better. I need to understand what 4E's opponents dislike about the system.

First and foremost, I think the largest of the strong complaints about 4E come from a large difference between it and 3E. 3E, partially, strived to be a simulationist game. There were rules for everything, and everything used the same basic system. Monsters and PCs were built on the same structure, monsters and PCs used the same spells and feats. There were even rules to create every person in a settlement, no matter the size. 4E, on the contrary, knew it was a game on the surface. It told DMs to just make things up and not worry about the rules for many elements of the game. Monsters are built to be challenges for your PCs. Cities are filled with whoever you want to fill them with. The blacksmith is a human who smiths, not a level 8 human expert with 11 ranks of craft (weapons) and craft (armor).

I see the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, but I think this difference was a large part of the disconnect between fans of 3E and their possible enjoyment of 4E. For some players, a simulationistic system makes them feel like they're part of a world. Without the aspects of a simulation, and with mechanics that feel like game mechanics, they are snapped back to reality and constantly reminded that they're playing a game. So we have our first area 4E could improve upon to bring over 3E's players.

Another large difference between 3E and 4E is the way leveling characters works. In 4E, you choose a character class and stick with it through the entire game. At a certain point, you get to choose from specialties (paragon path at 11th, epic destiny at 21st). You could multiclass, granting you a defining class feature in a higher rarity (at-will becomes encounter, encounter becomes daily) and allowing you to trade powers between the two classes. You could dual-class at 1st level, allowing you to grow as two separate classes from the get-go. 3E, on the contrary, allows you to choose your class at each and every level. One could start as a fighter, then after their character finds religion, they could level up as a cleric. With certain prerequisites, characters could even access prestige classes.

Now, prestige classes had flaws of their own. First, were often more powerful than the base classes, creating an arms race. Second, they were trying to fill two different roles; some PrCs represented prestigious organizations or rare specialties, while others existed to patch up weaknesses in the multiclassing system. Even recognizing these flaws, the 3E class system had strengths that were tied to its simulationist angle. A character could grow organically. Your decisions weren't set from level one. Players could customize their characters greatly.

The third difference I recognize between 3E and 4E is the firm, rigid structure of 4E. While you had choices at each level in 4E, sometimes more frequent choices than existed in 3E, the nature of those choices was always set. At 7th level, you learned a new 1/encounter attack ability, whether you wanted to or not. Now, I'm not certain why anyone wouldn't want to, but I suppose the lack of the ability to choose a non-combat ability, or to have more frequent use of a previous ability or just a stronger version of a previous ability made some players feel restricted. While many classes had these types of restrictions in 3E, they were less restrictive. Sorcerers, for instance, learned new spells at most of their level-ups, but those spells could be offensive, defensive, or utilitarian at the player's discretion.

4E's build system likely exacerbated this feeling of restrictions. Builds made it seem like choices were laid out for you from level 1. Powers granted bonuses to members of certain builds, making them seem like more powerful choices (even if they weren't). Feats were often keyed to certain builds. Some items even synergized with certain builds. These choices could feel like non-choices. Even if 4E's build system helped to prevent players from making weak characters, not having the option to create a weak character could feel like a restriction.

All of these differences are large, system-wide differences. But what about the differences between the core mechanics? I already addressed leveling. The next largest system difference is the skill system. In 3E, characters gained skill points at every level, based on the class they leveled and their intelligence bonus; in 4E, characters started with a number of skills at 1st level and didn't regularly gain more skills. On the surface, these two systems seem to be very different. In practice, a 3E character who does not multiclass could select their max number of skills and simply raise them to max at each level; this will produce similar numbers as a 4E character who selects the same skills at first level.

Perhaps this is, again, the illusion of choice. Technically speaking, DCs did not raise as you gained levels in 3E, but they did in practice. Higher CR traps had higher DCs to locate and disarm. Higher CR opponents had higher skills opposed to player skills. The fantastic challenges one would expect to encounter at higher levels had higher DCs, such as breaking down unbreakable adamantine doors or running across oil-slicked wires strung over windy canyons. 4E codified these DCs in an attempt to balance the game, but it presented the DCs by level rather than presenting the challenges by level. Perhaps this was a failing of presentation?

Feats were largely the same, filling the same role in both 3E and 4E. Some class features moved over to feats, but characters gained more feats, so that should balance out. There were some minor functional differences between equipment; for instance, armors in 3E were presented to largely appear balanced against each other, with higher AC armor having lower Max Dex. Some outliers existed, but largely this held true. 4E's armor system had a hierarchy, with hide armor being better than leather armor, and plate armor being better than scale armor (not withstanding armor check penalties, which are a minor inconvenience). I'm not sure how I should interpret this difference, except to recognize that it might make characters feel like they have to upgrade their armor by purchasing armor proficiency feats, rather than sticking with what the designers gave their class.

Spells changed drastically between 3E and 4E. This change only affects a portion of the classes, as not everyone fully relied upon spells (out of the 11 core classes of 3E, 4 lacked spells all together, and 2 more hardly used their spells). The half of the classes that relied heavily upon their spells contained the most potent of the 3E classes. Any change to those classes' resources could be perceived as an attack upon them, and thus an attack upon the players who favored them. It is well established that Clerics were more powerful than Fighters in 3E, even when the Cleric was performing the Fighter's own role. Rather than accuse spellcaster fans of disliking 4E because they felt their favorite classes were weakened, I'd like to focus on the differences between the spells.

In 3E, spellcasters gained X spells per day of each spell level. Most could prepare which spells they wanted access to each day, and then they cast from this list; some classes learned a smaller list of spells, but they could mix and match what they cast each day. Those spells could be offensive, defensive, or utilitarian; in a game not focused on combat, a wizard could prepare nothing but utility spells, allowing them to feel like their abilities weren't waisted (whether or not non-spellcasters had this opportunity is lost in this example). In 4E, spellcasters (like all classes) learned offensive and defensive defensive spells at certain levels; utilitarian spells were largely grouped together as "rituals" and siloed separately from class powers. Even if a 3E character who parsed their spells out to be able to make it through 3 to 5 battles in a day had the same amount of abilities as a 4E character did in each fight, we again find ourself in a situation where 3E allowed players to feel like they had more choices.

The fact that non-spellcasters had access to the same structure of abilities seemed to put off some players. Some have said this is due to spellcaster players wanting to be better than non-spellcaster players. The suggestion is that spellcasters are the "hard mode" of the game, requiring greater knowledge of the game and greater preparation, and thus they should be rewarded with greater power. Others may not like the use of the same power stucture for casters and non-casters because it leads to a feeling of sameness. Perhaps there are players out there that prefer simplistic characters who don't have to worry about limited use abilities (though I would argue that even a simplistic Fighter grew into a complicated character in 3E, what with the potential of having 18+ feats by level 20), and these players didn't like Fighters having "powers".

Now, I have gone on for twelve paragraphs highlighting why I think some players disliked 4E. It could seem that I'm saying 3E was a better game because of these facts, yet I began saying that I'm a fan of 4E. So what were the strengths of 4E? As many other writers have said, 4E's greatest strength was balance. Characters of the same level did similar damage and their bonuses grew at very similar rates. Instead of one class's attack bonus growing at +1 every 2 levels and another class growing at +1 every level (creating gap that grew so wide, the first class might as well never swing a weapon past the first couple of levels), all character's attack bonuses grew at the same +1 every 2 levels rate.

This balance wasn't just numerical in nature. 4E also balanced opportunity. Non-spellcasters could do cool things, just like spellcasters. Where the wizard could drop a fireball on a formation of enemy soldiers, a fighter could charge into the group and make a series of attacks upon all of them. In combat, everyone could contribute. No body felt left out in a 4E fight. Gone were the days of the fighter playing lineman while the wizard played quarterback, where everyone supported and relied upon the spellcasters and where the spellcasters could replace every other character (why play a traditional group including a Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard, when a combat Wizard, a utility Wizard, a melee Cleric and a caster Cleric did the job better?).

4E was also easier to run, at least from my experience. The strengths and abilities of the players was reasonably quantified, and the Challenge Level system was better balanced than 3E's Challenge Rating system. One didn't need to be a master of the system to run it, as so much of it was spelled out for new DMs. Monsters were more interesting to run; even the lowly goblin and kobold had interesting monster abilities. Increasing the power of monsters was as easy as consulting one chart, rather than going through the arcane system of adding hit dice or class levels and upgrading equipment. The existence of minion, elite, and solo monsters created variety in encounter design, and the fact that the basic assumption of the game shifted from 4 players vs 1 monster to 5 players vs 5 monsters made combat more dynamic. The nature of powers also made combat more tactical, as did the definition and quantification of player and monster roles.

Again, not wanting to commit egregious acts of ad hominem, I suspect some of the dislike of 4E stems from an elitist attitude towards 3E and gaming in general. 4E was easier to DM, thus its opponents called it a simpler game. 4E made characters more balanced, and thus they were all the same. 4E gave cool toys to non-spellcasters, and thus they were taking away the toys of spellcasters. 4E spelled quantified powers, and thus made it impossible for players to be "smarter" than their DMs. 4E made it harder to make a purposefully weak character, and thus it was stifling a roleplayer's ability to make the characters they envisioned. Games that reward system mastery and player skill have their place, but perhaps that place is not in a cooperative roleplaying game?

So how could one go about bridging the divide between two editions? The differences between them truly seem to be presentational in nature; whether a spellcaster rolls an attack roll for their spell against a static defense, or a defender rolls a saving throw against a static DC, is largely a matter of feel and not math. Other differences boil down to options. Some are tied to whether or not you want your game to be a game or a simulation of a fantastic world. If I were trying to recreate the feel of 3E while maintaining the balance of 4E, here is what I think I'd have to do:

Classes and leveling: Characters would need to choose a class upon each level up. This system allows for players to feel like their characters are growing organically.

Skills: Skills would need to improve as a character gains levels, and by choice, not automatically. Automatic advancement of skills, even when there are outside options to improve them further still, seems to dissolve verisimilitude.

Spells: Offensive and Defensive spells will need to be reconstituted in the same pool. Different classes will need to access the same spell list, though with minor differences, rather than having their own fully unique spell lists.

Powers: Powers for non-casters will need to be reigned in, perhaps made more optional or quantified in such a way so they don't feel supernatural if the player doesn't want them to.

NPCs and Monsters: NPCs and Monsters will need to be built on a similar chassis as players. NPCs need to be able to be built with stats, from the lowly commoner to the most regal king. Monsters need to use the same spells and abilities as players.

Now, how to do this could prove difficult. There are many mechanical hurdles to cross. If they could be crossed, or even circumvented, a version of D&D could be created that joins the last two editions, creating something greater than the sum of both parts. I strive to make a game that represents the best of both worlds, a balanced, simulationist, game that gives players the option to highly customize their characters. I don't know if it's possible, but I know it will be a fun ride.

I have never played 4E or read any of the rulebooks, but this post makes me want to try it. It's actually the first thing I've read about it (not that I've read a huge amount about it) that makes me want to try it.

I really want to run a game of Red Hand of Doom converted to 4E. I may start working maps into Roll20 and see about running a weekly game online.

A fascinating and illuminating essay.  As an unabashed fan of 3.X D&D - not just over 4th edition but in general, as a gaming system - and now a devotee of Pathfinder, I think I'm fairly close to the archetypal dissatisfied 3rd edition fan who found 4th edition less than stellar.  I'll mix and match my response between general thoughts on 4th edition vs. 3rd edition (in fact, when it comes to actual game mechanics, I will speak largely about the differences between 4th and Pathfinder, which I feel is still very recognizably 3rd edition but much more balanced and fine-tuned) and specific responses to some of your particular points.  I think that unlike some other forums where this sort of thing can get ugly pretty quickly, the CBG is sufficiently gentlemanly that we can have a civilized discourse about the differences between editions; that's awesome.  Obviously, your essay isn't purely an apology for 4th edition: it's as much about identifying the edition's weaknesses as defending it.  Hopefully my post here can help to provide an additional perspective to your guiding questions:

Quote from: XeviatAs a fan of 4th Edition D&D, it is difficult for me to understand what some fans of 3E didn't like about it. Was it simply a resistance to change? Was it something superficial, such as a dislike of certain terms? Was it a dislike of a perceived "sameiness" between different characters? Was it a dislike of rigid powers, or even the use of powers by non-magical characters? Was it anger at having one's favorite class reduced in power?

I am curious, first of all, what you make of Pathfinder, and I wonder why it wasn't mentioned in your essay.  Are you basically just unfamiliar with it?  If so, Paizo has put the rules entirely online for anyone to peruse.  I stress my affection for Pathfinder because it feels to me that Pathfinder remedies most of the major flaws in 3rd edition without falling into the traps that the designers of 4th edition failed their Perception checks for.

Now, the only 4th edition book I bought was the Player's Handbook.  It's not with me right now, as when I moved I didn't bother bringing it with me.  However, I read the thing pretty thoroughly.  I wish I had the book in front of me so that I could quote from it and perform a close reading, but alas, I'll have to work with the woefully inadequate 4E SRD , which brings me to the first thing I didn't like about 4th edition...

1. The Closed-Off, Exclusivist, Mean-Spirited Business Attitude of Wizards of the Coast for 4th Edition

One of the things that I loved about 3rd edition was the way the rules were presented as "open source" under the OGL.  Anyone could use them, anyone could find them, anyone could publish books using them.  This led to a wonderful plethora of 3rd party works being published, from adventures to campaign worlds to 3rd party splatbooks to complete hacks/rewrites of the game, like Blue Rose.  Some of these products were not so great (along with many Wizards splatbooks), but some were real gems.  The Witchfire Trilogy and Iron Kingdoms books, for example, were extraordinarily good (check out this map, this art, and these miniatures to see just how good).  Dungeon magazine put out some truly terrific adventures, and its sister publication, Polyhedron, wrote hacks and houserules for the game that could turn D&D into a Sword and Planet adventure, a post-acocalyptic romp, an espionage game, a WWII simulation, a mecha game, and more.  Meanwhile, Wizards itself posted some terrific free content on their site: free maps, free adventures, new monsters, adventure locations, plot seeds, and more (this is all archived here).  The Wizards forums were teeming with new and exciting content back then, and gave birth to this very site, and I still fondly remember perusing the works of Salacious Angel, Xathan, Luminous Crayon, and others on those boards.  In general, there was a feeling of openness, cooperation, and synergy.  I still bought Wizards products: I bought all the handbooks, plus many magazines, plenty of splatbooks, and several modules.

Then 4th edition happened.  Dungeon and Dragon, with their tradition of freelance submission, were cancelled and replaced by Wizards-only online publications.  The inestimably useful SRD was replaced with a scanty PDF with a few charts and lists.  The online content Wizards used to put out on their website is now subscriber-only - it reminds me of having to pay for extra outfits or weapons or other downloadable content in a video game.  And they made 4th edition effectively closed: no OGL.  There are a few 4th edition campaign settings put out by third party publishers, but it's nothing compared to the content that was put out during 3rd edition's tenure.  The ludicrously restrictive GSL, with its squeamish, prudish, puritan insistence that products must not contain any form of sexuality, not to mention "excessive" violence or gore, is simply infuriating

So, the foremost thing that annoys me about 4th edition has nothing to do with its rules or even its presentation and everything to do with the sharkish, unpleasant, big-business way that WotC conducts itself.  It wants to be the sole purveyor of my hobby; it doesn't want innovation or interesting games, it's not interested in what I want to play, it's interested in my money, and nothing else.  Whether or not this attitude is good business sense (I'm inclined to think that ultimately it is actually very poor business sense), it's extremely off-putting.

Even with these changes - this wholesale transformation of the gorgeous, baroque, anarchic, teeming pool of creativity (and, sometimes, crap) that was 3.X publication to the banal, homogenous, Orwellian autocracy that is 4th edition publication - I was willing to give 4th edition a shot.  Then I opened the book...

2. 4th Edition's Aesthetics

This is a matter of taste, of subjective aesthetic preference, but I think my opinion is shared by many.  I deeply dislike the presentation Wizards of the Coast used for 4th edition.  Granted, this is also something I'm not wild about with some Pathfinder works, but it's less pronounced there; also, the style of artwork now prevalent in 4th edition was beginning to become prominent in some aspects of 3rd.  This has been said before, but 4th edition cultivates a certain "cartoonish" quality.  The comparison to World of Wacraft is, I think, very apt: I'm left with the impression that WotC, eager to ape World of Warcraft and thus (they hope) tap into the MMORPG's success, went for art that emphasized bright colours, round contours, and a slightly vacant, air-brushed quality to its characters faces.  Everything looks cleaner, crisper, more polished – and boring.  Compare 4th edition's Beholders with those of 3rd – where the 3rd edition Beholder is a thing of monstrous sinews, terror, and aberrant grotesquerie, the 4th edition looks rather like a grumpy plush toy.  The sketchy, scratchy, concept-art approach of 3rd edition's handbooks, its rather dirty, worn-looking, organic characters and monsters, seemed to have been replaced with a series of glossy anime-inspired models.  No thanks.

Now, granted, this is a pretty superficial objection.  It has nothing to do with the "game itself" or how it's played.  I don't need to use the illustrations in my game.  But the art direction seems to confirm the feeling in the back of my head, the one that WotC's business moves put there: that they're looking to popularize, to dumb down, to appeal to the broadest audience possible.  I don't like that.  Part of what drew me to D&D was the intricate ruleset, the feeling of depth and richness.  Just glancing through the book, I remember frowning and shaking my head.  This wasn't the style of D&D I enjoyed.  It's not just the fact that they changed it that annoyed me, it's the way they changed it, and the reasoning I could surmise behind that change.  I didn't want an antiseptic game, a cartoon, I want D&D.  This brings me to my next point, and the first that's actually mechanical in nature.

3. Cartoonish, Antiseptic, Hand-Holding, Video-Gamey Mechanics

One major thing I didn't like in 4th edition was the feeling that the game had lost any sense of grit, any real bite.  This speaks to your point that:

Quote from: XeviatFor some players, a simulationistic system makes them feel like they're part of a world. Without the aspects of a simulation, and with mechanics that feel like game mechanics, they are snapped back to reality and constantly reminded that they're playing a game. So we have our first area 4E could improve upon to bring over 3E's players.

This is exactly, nail-on-the-head right.  The most glaring example I can think of is Healing Surges.  With a Healing Surge, characters who suffered potentially quite terrible wounds just sort of miraculously brushed themselves off and returned to being good as new, like a cartoon character who's had an anvil dropped on them, or a video game character leaning against a wall to regain their health.  D&D has never had an overly realistic health/HP system; it's always been one of the game's issues.  But 4th edition and Healing Surges make the issue so much more glaring, I couldn't take it.  Not only do Healing Surges feel silly from a realism perspective, they encourage a style of play I don't like.  D&D – at least as I play it – should be a game of danger and desperation.  If you screw up, you're in trouble.  You have to plan things very carefully.  You have limited resources and when you get cut, you bleed.  The cleric is your best friend.  But now, in 4th edition, you just catch your second wind, pluck out the arrows and go on your merry way.  Mechanics like these reduce the characters to pieces in a boardgame, to tokens, to miniatures in a wargame.  Which brings me to my next major objection:

4. Not Enough Emphasis on Roleplaying

D&D has always been a game of combat and daring, but I feel like for 4th edition, the designers put a lot of stress on combat, while generally neglecting the rest of the game.  This is hardly an original point, of course, but it's one of my major grievances with the system.  In Pathfinder, there are 26 skills, and that's not including the many variations of Knowledge, Craft, and Profession; skills can increase over time, and there's a feeling that your character's skills are pretty darn important.  With some classes, like the Rogue, having a wide variety of skills and lots of skill points to improve them is a major asset, and plenty of these skills have tons of utility outside of combat.  4th edition has 17 skills which improve at a static level.  Which all ties in to the overwhelming sense of...

5. Homogeneity

As you aptly put it:

Quote from: Xeviat4E's build system likely exacerbated this feeling of restrictions. Builds made it seem like choices were laid out for you from level 1. Powers granted bonuses to members of certain builds, making them seem like more powerful choices (even if they weren't). Feats were often keyed to certain builds. Some items even synergized with certain builds. These choices could feel like non-choices.

In a nutshell, 4th edition felt like 3rd edition drained of interesting choices.  Most criminally, for me, was the total decimation of D&D's spell list.  A handful of rituals and a paltry smattering of spells gained automatically every level replaced the sublimely vast repertoire of quirky, bizarre, and character-filled spells of 3rd edition and its kindred.  Every class in 4th edition felt like a re-skinned version of the same class.  Contrary to the opinion that 4th edition is obsessed with balance, I think 4th edition mistakes balance for sameness.

Now, 3rd edition was not perfect, either.  Notably, spellcasters became very powerful after a while, while Fighters and the like seemed to stagnate.  As you note:

Quote from: Xeviat4E also balanced opportunity. Non-spellcasters could do cool things, just like spellcasters.

This is why I like Pathfinder, though: many of the classes are modified to help remedy 3.X balance issues, and with the plethora of multiclassing options, prestige classes, and the like, there are lots of ways to make a character kick ass without being a high-level wizard.  Like maybe I decide to make my Fighter a Pit Fighter who can use dirty tricks and showmanship during his fights, throwing in a level of Rogue or two to give him an edge during flanking manoeuvers.  Pathfinder is more balanced than 3.0 or even 3.5, but it doesn't sacrifice choices or freedom while performing that balancing act; characters feel unique, hand-made.  They have character.  4th edition clucks its tongue at such audacity.  Desperately paranoid that one character might be better than another in combat, it straightjackets you to a pre-planned set of limited choices, sanding off all the sharp corners and telling you what to play.  Which brings me to my final point.

6. Authoritarianism

This, ultimately, is what I dislike about 4th edition, from its mechanics to the attitudes of its creators.  All of it – its simplified mechanics, its rigid class progressions, its limited options, its dumbed down skill system, its dearth of spells and multi-classing, its paternalistic publishing practices – smacks of a kind of overriding authoritarianism.  4th edition D&D feels like a walled garden; 3rd edition feels like a fun (and filthy) sandbox.  In 4th edition, my friends and I are handed a bunch of near-identical toys painted different colours without small, moving parts (lest we choke) or sharp edges (lest we cut our widdle fingers).  In 3rd edition we are thrown into a heap of parts and pieces and told to make it up and build something cool.  In 4th edition there are Characters and then there are Monsters.  In 3rd if I wanted to play a Half-Fiend Goblin Druid/Rogue/Shadowdancer, I could.   That's what I liked about 3rd edition: the feeling of possibility, the crusty, pockmarked utility of it, the way everything could be changed and remade and reassembled in a million combinations.

EDIT:

Oh, and I really bloody hate what they did to Alignment and the Cosmology in 4th edition.  The way they handled Alignment in 4th is just unbelievably dumb.  Why no Lawful Evil?  Why no Chaotic Neutral?  Lawful Neutral?  It's like the took out the best Alignments!

Well, of course, I can't resist chiming in. :grin:

Quote from: Xeviat3E, partially, strived to be a simulationist game. ... 4E, on the contrary, knew it was a game on the surface.

I'm not sure if the problems can really be boiled down to "simulationist" vs. "gamist." I mean, I understand where that comes from, but I think the problem in 4th edition isn't so much that you're reminded that you're playing a game, it's that the reminders are jarring and insulting. Things like the skill challenge system being an incoherent mess. Or the existence of daily martial powers making no sense. Or overly grindy combat encounters. Or the lack of a lot of non-combat uses for most of your powers. Or... well, basically not being able to RP well because the "gamiest" crap keeps getting in your face and interfering with your thought process and reminding you that this game really wishes it was a MMORPG.

Quote from: XeviatAnother large difference between 3E and 4E is the way leveling characters works.

I think 4th edition's approach to "multiclassing" where you can go look at another class's list of powers and grab something juicy could have almost been something worthwhile. This actually works better, I think, than 3e, because you can always get something (ostensibly) level appropriate. In 3e, you really had to plan out your "build" in advance and a lot of times a dip wasn't worth anything, except if it was a very front-loaded class; more often it just held up progression in your main class. Of course, then they screwed it all up in 4e because some class features were just plain better than other class features so the whole idea of picking from a buffet of ostensibly balanced options fell apart. So whatever.

Quote from: Xeviat4E codified these DCs in an attempt to balance the game, but it presented the DCs by level rather than presenting the challenges by level. Perhaps this was a failing of presentation?

I think it definitely was. While there may not be any difference in practice between 4th edition's scaling DCs and 3rd edition players going from the "Forest of DC 10 challenges" to the "Mountain of DC 20 challenges" to the "Evil Temple of DC 30 challenges," in the latter case, it feels like you're progressing through an organic world. Even before you're at a level you're able to take on the temple, it's still there. It exists and is part of the world. On the other hand, 4e's challenges just arbitrarily scale as your level goes up without any sense of connection to the world or the story.

Quote from: XeviatThis balance wasn't just numerical in nature. 4E also balanced opportunity. Non-spellcasters could do cool things, just like spellcasters.

The idea of "casters > you" was a definite and real problem with 3rd edition. I think it was a real failing of the system that it wasn't possible to make a Fighter who could do nearly the amount of "cool stuff" that a Wizard could. However, I don't really agree with your assertion, because I don't think 4e solved it in the right way; it seems more like it curtailed everyone's opportunity to do cool stuff, particularly when that "cool stuff" doesn't fit into 4e's neat little grid-based combat minigame. Iconic and weird spells from 3e got removed or nerfed into stupid rituals. Everything got simplified and reduced to the lowest common denominator. And the worst part is that none of this managed to really reduce the amount of system mastery necessary to build something "optimal," which I think would have been a laudable and achievable goal for 4e.

Quote from: XeviatI suspect some of the dislike of 4E stems from an elitist attitude towards 3E and gaming in general.

I've been generally critical of 4e for a long time, but I've always tried to avoid any sort of ad hominem and stay pretty objective, or, at least, when objectivity isn't possible, confine it to my opinions about the game rather than the people who play it. Hopefully I have succeeded!

I've never really understood all the hate 4E has received. To me it's a rules tight, fun game. The biggest problem I think people have with it - and they don't really realize it - is that the game is more rigid than previous editions. Look at all the really cool things people do with 3.5 - new races, new classes, new spells, new feats, new everything. House rules and new content are an endemic quality of 3.x. There's nothing stopping people from doing the same with 4E but, for some reason, they don't do it. They stick to the game as presented (races, classes, powers, feats, etc.). I look at all the campaigns I've played online and all of the 4E games have been by the book with very few house rules and almost zero new content.

The reasoning behind this, from my perspective, is twofold. First, 3.x is a broken system that is fraught with problems, both big and small. House rules are almost mandatory to balance the game and make it better. 4E, by contrast, is a much tighter system that has far fewer issues (until you get to the epic tier). You don't need new rules to make the system work because it is already solid. Secondly, the presence of the official character creator hampers new content because it cannot be easily added to the system (doubly so when it went online). There is a downward pressure (from WotC) and an upward pressure (from players) on the DMs to not generate new content because it is not really compatible with the system as provided.

One of my players often derides 4E for feeling too much like an MMO. I laugh at this comment because his favorite class in 3.x is the Warblade, which has a power mechanic that was created to test 4E's power mechanic.

To me, the only time 4E ever feels like an MMO is when players look at the world around them in terms of what their powers can do, rather than thinking like a person living in a fantasy world. To help alleviate this mentality, I've always been a proponent of is handing out rituals like candy. They add a sense of mystery back into the game that is sorely lacking.

In the spirit of debate (not the first fires of a flame war)...

Quote from: Elemental ElfI've never really understood all the hate 4E has received. To me it's a rules tight, fun game. The biggest problem I think people have with it - and they don't really realize it - is that the game is more rigid than previous editions. Look at all the really cool things people do with 3.5 - new races, new classes, new spells, new feats, new everything. House rules and new content are an endemic quality of 3.x. There's nothing stopping people from doing the same with 4E but, for some reason, they don't do it. They stick to the game as presented (races, classes, powers, feats, etc.). I look at all the campaigns I've played online and all of the 4E games have been by the book with very few house rules and almost zero new content.

Well, you can go and make houserules and new content for 4E, but it's not set up to encourage that kind of choice.  It's set up to be a rigid, by-the-book game where you play what the book tells you.  Innovation goes against its grain, sticks in its craw.  In 3.X, the mechanics of the game (multiclassing, lots of skills, prestige classes, monsters have the same stats as characters, tons of spells) encourage innvoation and customization.  Even if you do come up with some new material for 4E, you sure as hell can't publish it and get paid for it, unless you've been given a licence and a pat on the head by the suits at Hasbro.

QuoteFirst, 3.x is a broken system that is fraught with problems, both big and small. House rules are almost mandatory to balance the game and make it better.

I'd contend that Pathfinder does a pretty decent job of fixing a lot of those.  I'll also take rusty-but-with-choices over shiny-but-with-none any day.

QuoteYou don't need new rules to make the system work because it is already solid.

Solid... and, to my eyes anyway, fairly boring and samey.

QuoteThere is a downward pressure (from WotC) and an upward pressure (from players) on the DMs to not generate new content because it is not really compatible with the system as provided.

Yeah, this, in spades.

QuoteTo me, the only time 4E ever feels like an MMO is when players look at the world around them in terms of what their powers can do, rather than thinking like a person living in a fantasy world

I think this is exactly right - 4E constantly reminds you it's a game.

QuoteTo help alleviate this mentality, I've always been a proponent of is handing out rituals like candy. They add a sense of mystery back into the game that is sorely lacking.

Rituals are easily my favorite thing about 4E.  When I finally got to them it was like a breath of fresh air.  So good for you for emphasizing them!

Elemental Elf, I think we might be in more agreement than I thought we were when I started that post.

Xeviat, to address your specific hacks to "fix" 4E for the 3E complainer (like me):

Quote from: XeviatClasses and leveling: Characters would need to choose a class upon each level up. This system allows for players to feel like their characters are growing organically.

This would help hugely.

Quote from: XeviatSkills: Skills would need to improve as a character gains levels, and by choice, not automatically. Automatic advancement of skills, even when there are outside options to improve them further still, seems to dissolve verisimilitude.

Definitely, you've got it.

Quote from: XeviatSpells: Offensive and Defensive spells will need to be reconstituted in the same pool. Different classes will need to access the same spell list, though with minor differences, rather than having their own fully unique spell lists.

For me, this doesn't go far enough, personally, and in fact giving different classes the same spell list feels like a drift towards homogeneity rather than away from it.  What would be better would be more spells, with more character, for different classes, IMO.

Quote from: XeviatPowers: Powers for non-casters will need to be reigned in, perhaps made more optional or quantified in such a way so they don't feel supernatural if the player doesn't want them to.

I can see this working, though I don't think it's as necessary as your class and skill fixes.

Quote from: XeviatNPCs and Monsters: NPCs and Monsters will need to be built on a similar chassis as players. NPCs need to be able to be built with stats, from the lowly commoner to the most regal king. Monsters need to use the same spells and abilities as players.

Hell yes, this is vital.

Quote from: XeviatNow, how to do this could prove difficult. There are many mechanical hurdles to cross. If they could be crossed, or even circumvented, a version of D&D could be created that joins the last two editions, creating something greater than the sum of both parts. I strive to make a game that represents the best of both worlds, a balanced, simulationist, game that gives players the option to highly customize their characters. I don't know if it's possible, but I know it will be a fun ride.

Best of luck!

I remain curious about your opinions on Pathfinder, of course.

The only thing I will say about Pathfinder is that it did not solve 3E's biggest problem: Scaling. Watch:

Spell DCs are DC 10 + Spell Level + Ability Modifier. For primary spellcasters, "spell level" roughly equates to "1/2 level" when you're using your topped out spells.

Low Saves scale at +1/3 level. At level 20, without items that run come in offensive and defensive varieties, a Caster is going to be sitting on DC 19 + ability mod while a character's low saves are going to be at 16 + ability modifier. Coupled with their less likelyhood of increasing their tertiary ability scores, you run into a situation very easily where you might as well not roll your low defense if targeted by an effect.

Skills are worse. Even if a fighter puts cross class ranks into spot/listen, an equal level rogue (or worse, an assassin) will always get the drop on them. When you're dealing with a rogue's 23+Dex+more to hide/move silently and a fighter's 11+Wis+something to spot/listen ... welp, the Fighter's screwed. Make a Fort save for death from massive damage (or just a save vs. death if you were unlucky to be snuck up on by an assassin).

4E did a lot to fix this scaling problem. There are more things it could have done.

If I were to fix 3E (or Pathfinder) up to my liking, I'd have to tackle this first. BAB would be turned into a damage bonus, and attack/save bonuses would scale evenly (doesn't mean they have to start at the same point). But the numbers are so big (20d6 damage from a spell) that they have to be countered by resistances (20 or 30 energy resistance by my calculations), that simply reducing the numbers and getting away from some of the redundancies ends up bringing you right back to 4E.

Quote from: Steerpike

Quote from: XeviatSpells: Offensive and Defensive spells will need to be reconstituted in the same pool. Different classes will need to access the same spell list, though with minor differences, rather than having their own fully unique spell lists.

For me, this doesn't go far enough, personally, and in fact giving different classes the same spell list feels like a drift towards homogeneity rather than away from it.  What would be better would be more spells, with more character, for different classes, IMO.

I remain curious about your opinions on Pathfinder, of course.

You misunderstand me. What I mean is that the spells that the Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, and Wizard, and to a lesser extent the Paladin, Ranger, and others, is found in the same chapter. Some spells appear on multiple lists. What I mean is that instead of several classes getting a spell that deals damage and slows, they simply get access to the same spell.

As for Pathfinder, I've been quoted calling it the "Bawwwwww" edition. I think it fixes a lot of what needed to be fixed, but I don't think it was bold enough to fix other things.

Right now, I'm looking at altering some of the class structure of 4E. I'm looking into making it so all classes don't have access to the same progression of Encounter and Daily powers. Some classes, like the Fighter and Rogue, will likely lack Dailies entirely. Some classes will be made almost entirely of Dailies, like the Wizard. A core problem I've recognized in 4E is the "samieness" of characters, so I think giving different characters different "energy mechanics" to play with will help.

As for a real quick idea, how about instead of the Fighter having some type of refreshing encounter resource, what if I simply scale their frequency of critical hits. Then, the critical hit system can be expanded to have options other than damage. I can play with the math easily enough; if fights at level 20 are supposed to last 8 rounds, and players are supposed to have 4 encounter powers, and the hit rate is around 50%, then dropping a fighter's crit range from 20 to 16-20 is going to make half of their hits crits. Or something.

As with you, I am not trying to start a flame war in any way. :)

The 4E's frame work no more helps or hinders people's efforts to house rule than 3.x did. You've touted the abundance of skills as a benefit but, reasonably, how many of those skills were actually used? Only a handful I'd wager, especially if you add the "on a regular basis" restriction. You shouldn't need a craft skill to say that you can craft a piece of gear. You don't need a performance skill to say you can dance. You don't need a profession skill to prove you are a fisherman. Those are all ancillary tasks that should be settled by DM fiat or a simple ability roll (i.e. the way it was handled in editions that came before 3.x).

One of the things that has long baffled me about 3.x is that there is such a massive skill list - full of wondrously specific and niche abilities - yet Fighters only get 2 skills per level. Even the rogue gets just 8 per level. It's criminally negligent to design a game where there are so many skills available - each with very specific and precise rules - and then NOT give the players the ability to take ranks in more than a handful. This is doubly true for all of the skills that are "trained only." That's one aspect of 3.x that I absolutely abhor and I see it perpetuated in each d20 game WotC pumped out and every derivative 3rd party game. I find it quite maddening.

A smaller number of skills ensures that a fair amount of the time, someone in the party is going to have a particularly useful skill. It makes designing adventures more fun and easier when players have the skills that the game created.

Pathfinder did not fix any of big picture problems inherent to the d20 system. It just coated a thick layer of paint over top a rusted, dilapidated frame. Heck, it even added terrible issues of its own (I'm looking at you Summoner).

If you disregard spells and class design, the basic game of 3.X and 4E are, essentially, exactly the same. The difference is that 4E does not let the eccentricities of previous iterations of the game seep in to corrupt and/or weaken the core of the game. That is definitely both positive and a negative, depending on your perspective and what you desire most out of the game. I think fair play is something that should be encouraged. Allowing Clerics, Druids and Wizards to be so much more powerful on their own is a detriment to the game. I don't think any class should be ostensibly more powerful than any other class. That's one reason why I like 4E, it is a much fairer system to all players regardless of class choice.

3E reminds me of the fact that it is a game just as often as 4E does. The difference is that, for some people, they become obsessed with starring at their character sheets instead of looking at the bigger picture. This too happens all of the time with Spellcasters in 3.x. When people have a set number of options that are thrust right in front of their face, they tend to forget that there are other things they can do. I can't count the number of times I've seen players forget about all the cool things they can do with skills or combat maneuvers (bull rush, grappling, tripping, etc.) and instead just decide to attack the monster again.

What I think 4E did remarkably well was presenting a vision for the game. You are adventurers who delve into forgotten dungeons, slay monsters and find treasure. Everything in 4th edition is really geared around this core principle. It relies on DMs and players to flesh out the world around that core concept, rather than having it fed to them in the core rules. Those that don't like 4E often feel entombed by this core vision. They don't want to create the house rules necessary for them to enact their grand vision (which is often striking because they do it for 3.x all the time).

Ahh, I see.  That does make more sense.

QuoteSkills are worse. Even if a fighter puts cross class ranks into spot/listen, an equal level rogue (or worse, an assassin) will always get the drop on them. When you're dealing with a rogue's 23+Dex+more to hide/move silently and a fighter's 11+Wis+something to spot/listen ... welp, the Fighter's screwed. Make a Fort save for death from massive damage (or just a save vs. death if you were unlucky to be snuck up on by an assassin).

But that's not the way Pathfinder skills work.  In Pathfinder, there's no such thing as cross-class skills (ther are class skills, but they just provide a one-time +3 bonus), so a Fighter who wants to and puts his skill points in the right places can keep up much better with a Rogue on Perception vs Stealth.  

I suppose I sort of see the scaling argument, generally, but I am much less perturbed about it.  If a level 20 fighter is continuosuly getting screwed by Rogues getting the drop on him he needs to use some of his many feats to take (or retrain for) Alertness and Uncanny Alterness and/or get the party wizard/cleric to buff him.  If he's getting owned by wizards dominating him he needs to take (or retrain some feats to get) Iron Will and Improved Iron Will (maybe Shake It Off as well) and buy some potions of Owl's Wisdom.  Or go do a quest to get a magic item that buffs his wisdom.  Characters are meant to work as a team to cover their weaknesses; that's part of what I see as balance.  And characters should have major vulnerabilites; overcoming them is what makes them interesting.

Frankly, I think the Fighter is one of the biggest problems with any variant of 3.X, but whenever I've played Fighters or had people play Fighters multiclassing is almost inevitable, so it's a problem that sort of fixes itself, in a weird way.

QuoteWhat I think 4E did remarkably well was presenting a vision for the game. You are adventurers who delve into forgotten dungeons, slay monsters and find treasure. Everything in 4th edition is really geared around this core principle. It relies on DMs and players to flesh out the world around that core concept, rather than having it fed to them in the core rules. Those that don't like 4E often feel entombed by this core vision. They don't want to create the house rules necessary for them to enact their grand vision (which is often striking because they do it for 3.x all the time).

Right, but this is exactly the source of my objection to 4E.  The very mechanics of 4E (as well as the way that Wizards of the Coast has seen fit to publish the rules) seem set up to deter, inhibit, and problematize house-ruling and customization of this sort.  With the purposely limited spell lists, lack of multi-classing, seperate monster vs. racial/character rules, lack of prestige classes, lack of SRD, lack of OGL, and general pruning of features, 4E is undoubtedly more balanced, but it's ill-suited for casual/modular tinkering, whereas 3.X, for all its quirks and irregularities (some of which Pathfinder has mitigated, if not fully "solved"), was a very adaptible, flexible system that naturally inclined itself to tinkering and customization.  You have to really go against the grain of 4E core mechanics - like Xeviat is talking about doing, totally changing the way class levels, skills, and spells are handled - in order to get the same degree of individuality and customization from a 4E character as you can with a 3E character.

It's not that people are lazier with 4E, it's that 3E actively encouraged creativity, whereas 4E, though a better wargame, discourages it - at least, that's my take.

Let me start by acknowledging I have a bias towards Skill-based systems.

For my money (quite literally - I only ever purchased the Player's Handbook and sold that on at only a minor loss) the problem with 4E was the way that it took and ran rampantly out of control with the most troubling (for me and my wider gaming circle) aspect of 3E - the Feat.

Feats are something I just have an inherent problem with from just about every angle - from a 'gamist' angle they clutter up the system by attempting the inherently impossible task of statting up every possible tactical choice ever rather than allowing a system flexible enough to represent infinite tactical choices; from a 'simulationist' angle the idea that only some actions in combat correspond to an improvement in efficiency and only in the cases of certain characters is extremely damaging to verisimilitude; from a 'narrativist' angle the idea that a character is inherently limited in the interesting things they can try in combat is one that doesn't encourage interesting story-telling - and putting aside the rather controversial GNS paradigm, Feats to me just feel like pointless clutter for the sake of clutter that represent a concept (special training/tactics/maneuvers/etc) much better handled through a flexible Skill-system.

Powers were like a grossly out-of-control version of Feats gone even more rampant (at the expense of the Skill system, may I add) and just turned me right off 4E entirely, being representative of everything I had disliked about Feats in the first place (which they then kept, in addition to Powers, a decision that was just the icing on my dislike cake).

Ultimately, I think 4E was unintentionally the best and most faithful attempt at writing an RPG for World of Warcraft that we have yet seen (far better than any published version thus far) but a dismal failure at trying to innovate and improve on the previous edition of D&D, as had been the idea behind new editions up to that point.

Quote from: Hippopotamus DundeePowers were like a grossly out-of-control version of Feats gone even more rampant (at the expense of the Skill system, may I add) and just turned me right off 4E entirely, being representative of everything I had disliked about Feats in the first place (which they then kept, in addition to Powers, a decision that was just the icing on my dislike cake).

Yeah, I get this.  Powers are exactly the kind of thing that, for me, obtrudes into the game's versimilitude in a way that 3E doesn't.  Like encounter or daily powers - let's say I'm a Fighter, your run-of-the-mill non-magical knight, and I want to use the Brute Strike ability or whatever.  Why can I use this only once per encounter?  Because the game's balance requires it: no other real reason.  I guess my character got tired or something (though not so tired they can't use a different per-encounter power...).  It's very video-gamey: I can practically picture a little cooldown icon as the power recharges.  It calls attention to its game-ness.  At least with feats, they were abilities you just had access to.

I think fighter encounter powers should have been pooled and powered by points (like the Psionics system of 4E).

Designing them without encounter powers, though, would be very difficult to do and keep the same multiclassing system of 4E.

This is a bit off-topic, but Xeviat, I'm curious - what do you think of fantasy RPG alternatives like GURPS, Burning Wheel, or "OSR" retroclones like Castles & Crusades, Labyrinth Lord, or Lamentations of the Flame Princess?

Really, I'm wondering what your overriding design philosophy and system goals are.  What kind of game are you envisioning, and what do you want your 4E hack to accomplish, in broad terms?  How do you want the game to play, to feel?  I don't mean like "I want a hybrid of 3.5 and 4th edition," I mean like "I want a game of epic heroism where the characters are larger than life," or "I want a game of gloom and medieval darkness where the players must claw their way up from nothing," or "I want a highly immersive game, one invested with a sense of realism and grit," or "I want a very light, casual game that's fundamentally about tactical challenges."

I ask because with your approach so far, I think I get a sense of what you want to accomplish, but I want to know more about why, beyond simply pleasing players.  At the end of the day, what kind or style of game is the system in service of?  I tend to think that there's no platonic ideal for gaming systems, but that different systems suit different games.