posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lauraredcloud at 02:13pm on 01/07/2008 under d&d
lauraredcloud at 02:13pm on 01/07/2008 under d&dI mean, I don't know that much about D&D. I'm the guy who's always turning to the other players and asking "What do I roll for this?" or "What do I do to get my Fortitude?" or "How many feats do I get and which ones should I take?" But from my own shallow understanding and limited experience, here's my take on 4th edition so far.
The Good
The Bad
The Good
- Powers. Every class now has powers: for the spellcasters, they're spells; for the fighters, they're special attacks, etc. This makes all the classes more "samey" to play, I suppose, which might upset some people, but I like it. I've never wanted to play a spellcaster because it seemed so complicated, all those spells and rules to remember, but I could see myself doing it, since playing any character gets you used to the system. I also have no philosophical problem with the classes being samey, mechanics-wise. This isn't a computer game. You have the power to make your character act different from other characters, both of other classes and his own.
- Healing surges. All the classes can in at least some limited way heal themselves, so it's no longer vital to have a cleric in your party. More versatility to party makeup means more different kinds of games you can play (i.e. doing something a little silly isn't just a horrible idea because you'll die if you don't use the Standard Party Makeup) and more people getting to play the character they want. Not that playing a cleric is necessarily bad or unfun (I actually haven't played one so I can't say, and all the classes now are samey so it doesn't matter, right?), but people should choose it because they want it and they have an idea for it, not because the party lacks one and they haven't written up a character yet.
- Streamlined skills. There were just too many before, and the way they've grouped them together makes sense. Perception checks make much more sense than everyone always rolling both "spot" and "listen" all the time and me being able to make a rogue who's good at "search" but crap at "spot". (Passive checks for perception and insight also make a lot of sense--less work and less unavoidable hint-dropping by the DM!)
I'll admit thought that even though I'm wholly in support of the new system I still use the vocabulary of the 3/3.5 skill set. The sheer number and specificity of the different skills you had to account for may have been a little ridiculous, but the terminology is useful, and I still say "I sense motive" when I mean I make an insight check to see if he's lying (I don't make it; my WIS is -2.) - Challenge system for combat. I've never DM'd so this is second-hand but my DM loves it. He says it's a lot easier to set up battles so he can spend more time on the story. I'm all for that!
- Diagonals count as one square of movement not two. Thank you.
The Bad
- I'm not sold on the new core races. Granted, I'm pretty prejudiced against new things to start. I'm just not sure what you could add that would have the same level of basic fantasy necessariness as humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, and orcs. Arguably D&D was instrumental in making these races seem like the Big Five, but that doesn't mean they have the power to make any other race seem as instrumental and base-level.
For one thing, they've run out of races that are in Lord of the Rings. I feel like when you run out of races in Lord of the Rings you should maybe stop. It's possible to add a few others from longstanding myth and legend of humankind. I have no beef with gnomes, for example. I wouldn't mind if they made some more of the well-known monsters playable (kobolds!)
The new races they've added instead are dragonborn and tieflings. Also, they've split the elves into three subgroups.
Dragonborn are OK - I feel like they're retreading some of the same ground as orcs in that they're the big monster-creature, but they're less violent and more honorable. As Anna pointed out, they're Klingons. I have no problem with Klingons. Also, "dragonborn" isn't a well-known simple word like "elf," but it's at least based on something well-known and basic in the collective unconscious: dragons. People love dragons!
My real problem is with tieflings. Who has ever heard of a tiefling? The spellchecker doesn't think it's a real word. Core races should already be in the spellchecker. The name should give you some kind of clue about what it is. I have to look this up to figure it out.
Okay, Wikipedia says they are a "non-human race whose human ancestors made a bargain with devils to increase their power." Lame. They look kind of devilish (horns) and have a "dark past to overcome." Hey, know what you should play if you want to have a dark past to overcome? ANY OF THE RACES. WRITE A BACKSTORY. Shee.
Next, the elves. You've got your regular elves, your Drow (dark-elves; this is the same as previous editions but I always thought it was kind of dumb), and the dumbest of all, Eladrin, the high-elves, who can teleport at will. A playable race can teleport at will! LAAAAME. - Alignment overhaul. You can now only be Good, Lawful Good, Evil, Chaotic Evil, or Unaligned. Why even bother with Law and Chaos, or even having alignments at all, at this point? What exactly is the distinction between Good and Lawful Good, or Evil and Chaotic Evil, and why should I care?
Dammit, the two scales of Lawful vs. Chaotic and Good vs. Evil were INTERESTING. They made SENSE to me. It acknowledged that there's a distinction between law and good, between chaos and evil! That's important! That's powerful! That leads to interesting conflict and moral grey areas both between and within characters!
Sure, people had trouble playing to alignment, and I don't mind getting rid of it altogether--which would actually acknowledge MORE moral complexity (nobody has to declare they're good or evil, people act the way they act), but this way it's just black and white and limited and stupid.
Chaotic Good! That's what my rogue IS! It's very descriptive of him! It's a helpful guide in role-playing! And I always fill my backstories with tons of Lawful Evil characters, because they make excellent socially acceptable and subtly menacing villains. Come on guys. Way to take out the only alignments that made the alignment system interesting and useful. - Rapier not class weapon for rogues. I had to take a feat!
(no subject)
I also agree that the tiefling is not super exciting, but the dragonborn is a perfectly serviceable klingon type character. I would slightly prefer the orc in that role, but I understand they didn't want to totally rehabilitate the orc to the point when you couldn't guiltlessly mow them down willy nilly.
Elves I agree with: too many elves. I personally don't mind the elf/eladrin split, although eladrin should TOTALLY have +2 charisma instead of +2 dex. They are fey, and they should all be beautiful and terrible like an army poised for battle and whatnot. But the biggest disappointment is that half-elves are still in! I don't see why people shouldn't be expected to make up their mind: are they going to play an elf or a human? Also, no half-eladrin? or elfadrin?
Alignment I don't care about. I wouldn't have minded if they got rid of it. Alignment strikes me as a weird joke. In a game I DMed recently, someone was "lawful chaotic".
I like rapiers because I like swash. It's kind of cool that they decided to make them better than most other weapons. Even if they charge you a feat; I don't mind them being the purview of the skilled fencer.
My other pros and cons:
Pros: The per-encounter and daily abilities mean that I often have interesting choices about what to do. Different from in 3e, where, for example, my last character was built to be good at tripping people, and so tripped people every round. Sure, I could have tried to do something suboptimal like stab a guy, but in a well-designed system, the optimal move is also the most fun move.
Cons: There is officially no use for my 10-sided die with the tens place on it. There are no percentile rolls in 4e.
(no subject)
Anna
(no subject)
(no subject)
Anna points out that, officially, the 4e stance on this is "DM's choice." Still. Like you, I would prefer a world without interbreeding if only to force players to make a goddamn choice.
(no subject)
Also, they exist in Lord of the Rings. Elrond is a half elf! Oh, and they used to walk the bridge between eternal life and immortality, but now not so much.
Elves and humans also kind of look similar and are both pretty hawt. So it seems reasonable that they could produce children but not, say, a halfling and an orc. And I think the idea with the 1/16th thing is that once you go Half Elf, you never go back, but that's probably up to the DM. Maybe it's like, there's a chance you're a half elf and a chance you're a human?
Oh, Tieflings who mate with humans sometimes spawn Tieflings and sometimes don't, but no half breeds for them!
(no subject)
Semi-unrelatedly, I have the same objection about Elrond being a half-elf that I have about Spock being half Vulcan. Elrond is more elf than any other elf; Spock is more Vulcan than any other Vulcan! If they're not fully embodying elfness/Vulcanity, WHO DOES?
(no subject)
(no subject)
D&D!
My thoughts:
Powers: I suppose these are samey in the sense that everyone has 2 at will-powers but they tend to do very different things, which really helps define the class. Clerics, for example, get powers that aid their allies when they hit (either with a bonus to hit the same enemy or with hps). Fighters get powers like Cleave and Reaping Strike, which encourage them to be on the front lines hitting things.
Healing Surges: Healing surges and second wind (which allows anyone to trigger them once per encounter) are pretty nice, but I think that getting someone to trigger your healing surges as part of an action (or through using a minor action) is the best way to get healing, since it doesn't cost a turn. Leaders (Clerics and Warlords) do that best. So while Clerics aren't essential I think a Leader is probably the most essential member in a party. You can do without one, but it will make things tougher.
Tieflings: Tieflings were in 3.5 as one of the low level adjustment races, and I think people liked them so they brought them in. I don't mind wandering devil people (they're easy to fit into a campaign world, at least), and they'll at least get more play than gnomes did.
Alignment: I think they ditched some of the alignments because they were trying to get rid of needless symmetry, and they figured Good was GOOD enough to cover neutral good and chaotic good.
Rapier: On the plus side with this one, rapiers are really awesome weapons and a good choice for rogues who like to take advantage of high weapon damage powers.
For me one of the biggest pros is that they really tried to nail the role based system, which they shied away from in 3rd edition. I like the idea that I can be AWESOME at something and that doesn't detract from your awesomeness because we're doing completely different things. This wasn't the case in 3.5, which for the most part encouraged everyone to make high damage builds to crush everything in their path. In most groups I found myself in, it wasn't hard to figure out who the bad ass in the party was, and then sort myself from there. Often that badass was the cleric or druid, since they were made VERY VERY powerful compared to other classes.
Now it's like, WOW, that rogue hit for 30+ damage with his sneak attack and ripped that one guy apart, but you don't feel bad because you just took out half a dozen minions using a well placed Burning Hands on your turn. Meanwhile, that Warlord was the guy who kept the rogue from dying and used his power to setup the flank in the first place. So it's less competition with other players and more teamwork, which is always a fun thing.
Re: D&D!
I do like that rapiers are awesome. I took the feat mainly because I was trying to play the same character I had in 3.5 and he HAD a rapier, so it was for role-playing purposes, but now he does better damage. (Also, because 1st level is better in 4e. And so are rogues!)
Re: D&D!
When you think of the height of good you usually think about the knight in his shining armor who never lies and takes his promises very seriously. He's like the paragon of good!
Same goes for Chaotic Evil. A horrible twisted soul who kills and destroys for its own sake, driven by rage and hate and cruelty.
Some of the other alignments, like Chaotic good, do fit archetypes, but generally not as strongly. Like, is the dashing rogue with a heart of gold chaotic good, neutral good, chaotic neutral, or true neutral? I don't know!
Also some of the alignments are truly boring. Maybe it's just because they stuck neutral in front of it, but neutral good and neutral evil never excited me. So I'm neutral good... so that means I like to help people but I'm not as stuck up as a lawful guy or crazy as a chaotic guy? I guess... And lawful neutral seem more like an academic exercise than an actual character concept.
Re: D&D!
My alignment house rule proposal
Then you only have four choices. I would argue that all of them describe equally interesting, different, and well-known archetypes.
Chaotic Good = thieves/rogues with hearts of gold; Robin Hoods; White Hat hackers; idealistic Marxists; fun-loving pranksters; hippies who chain themselves to trees
Lawful Good = paragons of wholesome goodness (paladins, etc.); non-renegade law enforcement; sweet-tempered non-boat-rocking milquetoasts
Chaotic Evil = nadirs of vile darkness; evil geniuses; demonic minions; rageaholics; raisers of dead for non-emotional reasons
Lawful Evil = profit-driven captains of industry; sociopaths; cruel, calculating villains in positions of power a la Cardinal Richelieu
Agree completely that adding a neutral option for both the law/chaos and the good/evil slot create too many options many of which are samey, but I think for most if not all players, choosing one of the above options would provide enough rigidity to add definition to their characters while being diverse enough to describe most characters. If necessary, just adding a single fifth alignments-- a general 'unaligned'-- as a catch-all would be sufficient.