D&D 4e thoughts so far

[lauraredcloud]

I 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

• 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!

Comments

[duneguy.livejournal.com]

I agree with all your positives.

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.

[(Anonymous)]

Laura and I just had a further discussion about the intermixing of races: e.g., half halfling half tiefling.... I think any mixing of races should really be up to DM discretion; half elves, along with half orcs, etc, don't really make much sense to me as defined player races. It seems like you should have the basics down, and then the DMs can decide to what extent they can interbreed (quarter dragonborn, quarter human, half tiefling?), and what the benefits and detriments are.

Anna

[laura-redcloud.livejournal.com]

Jinx!

[laura-redcloud.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they should have scrapped half-elves. Plus (and this is a problem from way way back, but they haven't solved it) once you open the can of worms that is interbreeding you really have to do it all the way or not at all. Can you play a character that is one-sixteenth elf? Half-halfling? Half-halfling half-tiefling?

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.

[sliceydicey.livejournal.com]

I think I must be the ONLY person in the world who likes Half Elves. Maybe it's from my Everquest days when I played Glororhan Greatsong, Half Elf Bard, and entertained the world, but I like the idea of a cool friendly charismatic race that is a good diplomat and negotiator. I think that makes sense for a half elf, who is from different but agreeable cultures.

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!

[laura-redcloud.livejournal.com]

I don't know Rory. Never underestimate the power of opposites attracting. Some human couples resemble a halfling and an orc.

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?

[anthemyst.livejournal.com]

Spock is CLEARLY overcompensating.

[laura-redcloud.livejournal.com]

It's true, I sometimes feel about Spock the way I feel about Data: they're both protesting way too much in the "As you know, I have no emotions, and therefore cannot grieve/comfort you/commit to a monogamous relationship/pick you up at the airport" department.