To 4e or not to 4e?--Does it work for your setting?

[Seraph]

With the release of 4th edition, the question comes: Do I update my campaign setting to 4th Edition, or continue on as before?  What is to be gained?  Lost?

Therefore, I devote this thread to asking the community the same question.  Are you going to update your settings?  Why or why not?  If you've not yet decided, what factors are you weighing in your decision?

To be fair, I will lead off, and since I have not decided yet, I shall pose those issues that I thin would fit in well with Avayevnon, and those that would put a square peg in a round hole.

*On the pro side, with 4e having two separate races of elves and eladrin, the Iluvinese vs. Sylvaese elves could be handled by making the Iluvinese into Eladrin, thus eliminating any elven subraces.
*On the con side, I would need to come up with my own racial feats for the nonstandard races present in Avayevnon, and would have to deal with gnomes (actually important in Avayevnon) being a monstrous race.
*On the pro side, rituals built into the framework of the game works nicely with a few ideas about magic I was throwing around with great interest.
*On the con side, at the same time, the ability of wizards to cast magic missiles at will is a kind of high magic that runs completely contrary to my other ideas about magic.
*On the pro side, I could find many uses for the 4e Warlock.
*On the con side, one of the big players in Avayevnon, the Druids, are not even present in 4e (yet).  Granted, since it seems clear that the Druid is to be released in the future, this is not a crippling argument.
*Also on the con side, the Church is hugely important in Avayevnon, and 4e's Healing Surges sort of undermine the cleric.  I feel like, if everyone had a degree of healing power, that'd be a big thing the Church couldn't hold over people. (Of course it's presumed that laypeople do not have said healing surges, but since a lot is from the POV of the PCs, if the heroes can heal themselves, they have no need of the Church.  If adventuring parties need a cleric, the Church has influence over them, but if all PCs have self-healing capabilities, they would be an unchecked force.  

I may come up with more later, and who knows, all of your responses might shed more light for me about 4e's suitability for my own campaign, and if it can do so for me, hopefully it can do so for others as well.

[Lmns Crn]

To answer your question: No, I won't be doing anything to combine the Jade Stage with 4e. This is unsurprising, because it required such heavy modification to get it to work with 3.5 that I gave up trying to reconcile the world with D&D a year or two ago.

I have been playing a 4e game run by a local buddy of mine, though, and it's heaps of fun. So I guess I have no problem with the system or the gameplay, it just doesn't really fit the sort of thing I've written.

If you haven't had a chance to play with the system and test things out, you ought to try to do so. In many ways, it works differently in practice than it looks like it will on paper. Healing surges are one of those things that don't work the way they might seem to at first glance.

During the course of a fight, each character gets to self-heal only once, for a value equal to 1/4 their maximum health. Damage gets thrown around like crazy in 4e, though, so it's... pretty unwise to rely on that "second wind" self-healing. Most of the fights our group has had so far have required me (as the cleric) to work pretty diligently to keep everybody alive, and without a dedicated healer/leader present, things would have gone very badly indeed.

Really, the concept of healing surges does three things. 1.) It helps players start each combat with full health (since you spend them freely between encounters), 2.) it gives them a very minor ability to self-heal (useful for when the healer is swamped), and 3.) it actually limits the amount of healing a character can receive in a given day, since most healing powers require the recipient to spend a surge in order to benefit. (Clerics in particular and other healers in general are always going to be valuable for this reason as well-- as a rule, they are the ones with the rare powers that can heal somebody who has no surges left, so no one else can keep a person alive when their body has been mangled into hamburger.)

Also: Surely the influence of the Church in Avayevnon is not simply a result of the Church's function as a medical center, right? Certainly, healing is a big display of the Church's power and a bit of leverage to hold over the heads of the recalcitrant, but they are more than just a hospital, yes? What about the doctrine that influences the lives of the faithful, or strong political clout, or the large number of other reasons why a large and well-established organization might have scary amounts of power and importance without requiring them to wield supernatural power, or to babysit adventuring groups? [/spoiler]

[Superfluous Crow]

I'm pretty sure i won't be using the system as a whole for my setting, although i might steal a few bits from it (inspiration-wise that is).
But the rules do look rather good though: I especially like how the fighter seems to have turned out. So there is no telling whether i'll change my mind after having tried it out. the only thing which really annoys me is the cleric and the paladin: i can't even imagine how i would attempt to explain their abilities. (e.g. Shielding Smite where you hit an enemy and suddenly your friend is protected by a golden shield). So i'd probably remove them. Also, warlocks and wizards are probably a bit too over-the-top for my setting, even though they are nice.

[Lmns Crn]

the only thing which really annoys me is the cleric and the paladin: i can't even imagine how i would attempt to explain their abilities. (e.g. Shielding Smite where you hit an enemy and suddenly your friend is protected by a golden shield).

Also, warlocks and wizards are probably a bit too over-the-top for my setting, even though they are nice.[/quote]Same here. One definite change that 4e has brought about is that everything is now significantly more "glowy"-- I foresee the most problems for people whose settings aren't intended to have people throwing around magic all day long.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Since I don't have a setting in existence right now, I can't "update" it.

Plus it has a distinct lack of any ability to play a flaming snake.  I'm making that my new requirement for game systems.

[LordVreeg]

[blockquote=SH]With the release of 4th edition, the question comes: Do I update my campaign setting to 4th Edition, or continue on as before? What is to be gained? Lost?

Therefore, I devote this thread to asking the community the same question. Are you going to update your settings? Why or why not? If you've not yet decided, what factors are you weighing in your decision?[/blockquote]

I love Avayevnon, and I love your work in general.  But asking 'the community' if the updating of one particular ruleset assumes we all use that ruleset.  [spoiler=Cranky spoiler, avoid if crankiness offends you.]And makes me cranky, or actually crankier, to be precise.  I was not aware that when I joined up here and started putting time and effort that I was going to be dealing with a WotC spinnoff site, and makes me consider taking a long hiatus from the CBG.  I can deal with a large portion of the community being concerned and happy about an update of something they all enjoy, but the near-totality of the % of new threads, the lack of response to non-4E threads, and this assumption that everyone is either updating or not is like nails acros a chalkboard now.[/spoiler]

So my answer is that 4e's advertising campaign has not yet made me want to revert back to d20 D&D, or furthermore to change to 4e.  From what I have seen, it is more playable and combat friendly, but way too HP heavy and with no where near tha amount of emphasis on social skills/roleplaying skills that my setting would require.  

[Superfluous Crow]

And yeah, LC, multitasking was my best guess as well. But then comes the freaky runic circles paladins begin throwing around at level 3 or so. I've always had a hard time comprehending the whole idea behind divine magic though, so i might just be a bit slow on that issue.
And Vreeg, it'll probably pass in a few weeks; this is just the transitional phase.

[Kindling]

No. I am not moving to 4e. Because I don't play Dungeons & Dragons anymore, I play Iron Heroes. Which I guess technically is a variant of D&D.... but a variant of 3e D&D... so yeah either way, sticking with that. Plus, I can't afford new rulebooks.

[Superfluous Crow]

Uh, i have the iron heroes rulebook too. Very neat game, although i never got to play it. Are they making new books for that line?

[Seraph]

[spoiler=clerics, healing, and the church]If you haven't had a chance to play with the system and test things out, you ought to try to do so. In many ways, it works differently in practice than it looks like it will on paper. Healing surges are one of those things that don't work the way they might seem to at first glance.

During the course of a fight, each character gets to self-heal only once, for a value equal to 1/4 their maximum health. Damage gets thrown around like crazy in 4e, though, so it's... pretty unwise to rely on that "second wind" self-healing. Most of the fights our group has had so far have required me (as the cleric) to work pretty diligently to keep everybody alive, and without a dedicated healer/leader present, things would have gone very badly indeed.

Really, the concept of healing surges does three things. 1.) It helps players start each combat with full health (since you spend them freely between encounters), 2.) it gives them a very minor ability to self-heal (useful for when the healer is swamped), and 3.) it actually limits the amount of healing a character can receive in a given day, since most healing powers require the recipient to spend a surge in order to benefit. (Clerics in particular and other healers in general are always going to be valuable for this reason as well-- as a rule, they are the ones with the rare powers that can heal somebody who has no surges left, so no one else can keep a person alive when their body has been mangled into hamburger.)

Also: Surely the influence of the Church in Avayevnon is not simply a result of the Church's function as a medical center, right? Certainly, healing is a big display of the Church's power and a bit of leverage to hold over the heads of the recalcitrant, but they are more than just a hospital, yes? What about the doctrine that influences the lives of the faithful, or strong political clout, or the large number of other reasons why a large and well-established organization might have scary amounts of power and importance without requiring them to wield supernatural power, or to babysit adventuring groups? [/spoiler]

Well of course, I didn't mean to imply that the church in my world was only a hospital, because really, at least flavor-wise, that aspect is not really played up.  However, I didn't like the idea of heroes (who could theoretically become well known and liked by layfolk) to be able to say, "Hey we don't need the Church" and thus inspire a rebellious spirit in the layfolk . . . actually that'd make a good story. . . Well, I supposes that's still not the way I'd generally like it to be.



@Lord Vreeg:  I didn't mean to imply that everyone uses the D&D ruleset, since I know that there are a lot of people on this site that don't.  I know that there are campaigns on this site that don't use any ruleset either.  I didn't think that by asking who would be using 4th Edition I would be offending those who didn't use 3.5.  It was asked more out of curiosity, as I had thought about it, but hadn't come to a conclusion.
 [spoiler=in response to crankiness]I'm sorry to have contributed to a trend that irks you, and would be sorry to see you leave.  I like you, and you are a valuable member of the Guild, and you have contributed to Avayevnon more that once.  I'd hate to be the final straw for someone who had taken the time to help me.[/spoiler]

[Kaptn'Lath]

Thanks for making this thread, i was going to make a post to discuss the pro's and con's and "how to's" and "which ways should i go" in convering my 3.5 Tu'loras to 4e. (i posted an introduction, but was rather silly so close to 4e comming out i should have waited).

I like elves being split into two (three if you count drow) however Tu'loras had 4 (High, Verdent, Drow, Dharrow (peaceful exiled elves) so i think you got it good if you where planning on two, and dont be scared to make your own PC races, all you need is the examples from the back of the MM.

I am in the same boat with you on magic, like rituals, but prefer more "old school" eclectic magic or "low magic" myself. i am still waiting for nature or elemental magic for 4e to really decide if i like it or not. I dont want wizards to look like storm troopers shooting green/blue/red beams of light every few seconds, they should still use their staff, or crossbow or whatever... possibly making at will-powers full round actions as aposed to standard helps?

Druid... ok personally at my table i play with "a hippie, a witch, a physicic, and a farmer" i kid you not, so i am waiting for PHB II which is rumoured to be based around the Nature, Psionic, and Primal Power Sources, my players wont start their next big campaign with out it (still playing to learn just not getting attached to their characters) I dont like the staggard/spread out releases of classes, races, even breaking up the "core". But thats WOTC plann to sell more books (and it will work) over 4e lifespan.

I think Healing Surges work like a cap or currency, used to power your recuperation. It takes others, powers, abilities, items to heal you using a surge as a power source and balancing mechanic combined. That said i dont like the dethronement of the cleric (however being a cleric player i know it can get tedius)

I like 4e because of how streamlined and quick combat it to leave more time at the table or roleplaying and non-combat encounters. Just because the books dont have rules for roleplaying dosent mean you cant roleplay in 4e, it just means DnD has finally learned not to try to make abstract rules for roleplaying, let the DM call it which is the right way to go. I dont belive any of this "4e killed roleplaying" the sky is falling non-sence.

[the_taken]

Are you going to update your settings?  Why or why not?  If you've not yet decided, what factors are you weighing in your decision?

4e is a very different game from 3.x. I liken 3.5 to a big mess that you can find gems in, while 4e is a slapped together piece of junk tactical skirmish game.

In 3.5, power levels between characters types varied wildly, but the abilities of the powerful where both grand and dynamic. All the real mages pulled endless wealth shenanigans and exploited infinite knowledge loopholes to bend the world to their whims, while second tier character were powerful enough entities that could scale Mount Olympus and leap the clouds. Fighters and barbarians where bottom rung character designed to spend their life slogging thru muddy battle fields at the same level that wizards were creating demiplanes, which was a huge problem that could easily be fixed by giving high level fighters awesome abilities. (The Tome Series is a solid collection of works that attempts to bring the bottom tier character types in line with the super mages, like necromancers, playable monster PCs and stabbing oriented characters. High level games still devolve into rocket launcher tag, but at least it brings everyone a Bazooka for X-mas.

4e is a game devolved around slogging thru retarded corridors with the same homicidal monsters around every other corner. As the levels rise, you go thru more corridors with tougher monsters, and gain access to bigger abilities. Not new, or different abilities. Bigger abilities. The monsters don't change, they just get bigger and tougher. It's Diablo, or Monster's Den. It's not my bag.

I'm sticking to 3.K for my D&D games, and will come up with new systems for new games if I can't find an appropriate one. That said, I will be playing one campaign thru 4e just to try it out, but only cause Pelor lost his balls and needs them back.

[Ninja D!]

I hadn't worked on my setting in a very long time.  I also hadn't done anything D&D related in a very long time.  Now I have 4E, I like it, and I'm going to give my setting a makeover like what is being done to Forgotten Realms.  It will still be the same world...just many years later after some great changed have taken place.

[Ra-Tiel]

[...] 4e is a game devolved around slogging thru retarded corridors with the same homicidal monsters around every other corner. As the levels rise, you go thru more corridors with tougher monsters, and gain access to bigger abilities. Not new, or different abilities. Bigger abilities. The monsters don't change, they just get bigger and tougher. It's Diablo, or Monster's Den. It's not my bag. [...]

And you couldn't have that in 3.5, too because of what? If you have a boring and monotonous game it's because the DM makes it boring and monotonous, and not because of the rules set. ;)

[the_taken]

[...] 4e is a game devolved around slogging thru retarded corridors with the same homicidal monsters around every other corner. As the levels rise, you go thru more corridors with tougher monsters, and gain access to bigger abilities. Not new, or different abilities. Bigger abilities. The monsters don't change, they just get bigger and tougher. It's Diablo, or Monster's Den. It's not my bag. [...]

And you couldn't have that in 3.5, too because of what? If you have a boring and monotonous game it's because the DM makes it boring and monotonous, and not because of the rules set. ;)

In 3.x, tactics layered on top of each other and unintentionally synergized. Levitate granted virtual immunity to dire bears, for instance. As the levels rise, tactic are continually created and negated as powers actually change. In 4e, your tactics amount to "I hit it. Again." Status ailments are virtually meaningless as they often end in a round or two, and combat is designed to last longer as you rise in levels. 3.x can be boring if the DM is boring, but 4e is boring by design.