I find my self needing to clarify my opinion again in response to Alan's comment, this time on alignment. Like I said in my first post, I agree that the old alignment system was strained in places, especially keeping NG and CG distinct and deciding exactly what CN meant. My concern is mostly that Lawful Good, Good, undecided, Evil, and Chaotic Evil will look like a continuum to someone who isn't familiar with the old system. They even encourage that point of view in the second paragraph of the CE description. A sentence or two is all it would have taken to say that LG and good can be equally good, differing only on the degree of value placed on lawfulness, and likewise for Evil and CE. I don't know if a newcomer would really view it as a continuum rather than as designed, but they might.
On to chapter 4. Probably the first thing I noticed is that while classes was a fairly modest 35 pages in 3rd ed, it's a whopping 120 in 4th ed. due to the huge number of class specific powers. Paragon paths are essentially a refinement of prestige classes, but since there are only 3-4 per class and you need to pick one, it could be restrictive on viable character concepts. Presumably there will be many more in the future splat books (only $29.25 each). Epic destinies is hurting even worse for options since, of the four available, Archmage is wizard specific and Deadly Trickster may as well be rogue specific.
Powers are by far the biggest new thing in this chapter. I think they are an extremely good thing for casters, since at will and per encounter spells can get a party away from stopping to rest because the Cleric or Wizard is out of spells. Where I think powers went wrong is in using them for all classes. In previous editions a player who was new and learning, or just wanted streamlined options, could play almost any non caster class and be happy. Now every class is as complicated as playing a caster. You're pretty much never going to use a basic attack, so every action means picking from whatever options are available and tracking power usage for every player. I may be thinking it's worse than it really is, and I do think it is a vast improvement for casters, but think it is a negative for non casters.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time pouring over each class since the returning classes are conceptually similar, plus my attention span for reading each power gave out mid Paladin. Overall, classes look more restrictive, in that it is hard to break out of the standard model for a class. I don't think Denia would be possible, and certainly not practical, in 4th ed. I'll miss that flexability.
Cleric is pretty much the same with a little more combat and a lot less healing. I suspect the new limit on adventuring between rests is going to be the Cleric's reduced ability to pour blood back into the Fighter.
Fighter is now pretty much restricted to being an armoured tank. As someone with fond memories of the flexibility of the 3rd ed fighter I see this as a big loss, probably more so in my mind than it is to most anyone else.
Paladin looks similar although the Paladin's Mount appears to be gone. (mmm... Unicorn mount)
Ranger follows the lead of 3.5th ed. with the separate Two Weapon Fighting and Bow paths. There isn't any explicit restriction to one path or the other, but I'm sure splitting feats and powers between the two paths will leave the character relatively weak at high levels.
Rogue is pretty much a rogue, although it looks like the stealth rogue, which is what I think of when I think rogue, is an afterthought. It doesn't really fit either build option. It looks like combat ability has been strongly promoted. Like I said yesterday, I'm not a fan of the striker role emphasizing combat abilities over non-combat abilities.
Warlock is an interesting concept, although pacts seem a little forced in a game where magic is always out there for the taking. Eh, not a big deal by any means. No real surprise that most Warlock spells have a target of one creature since it was placed in the striker role. They don't appear to get Rituals, which isn't a surprise since they are conceptually very different casters than the Cleric and Wizard. The Warlock's paragon path is explicitly dictated by choice of pact at level 1, with one paragon path for each pact. Hopefully they fix this in the splat books.
The Warlord concept feels really out of place to me, being better suited conceptually to leading armies than supporting a small group of heroes. I have to admit I didn't read enough of the powers to have a very good feel for how the class fits mechanically, but it does have some healing powers to fulfill that part of the Cleric's role.
The Wizard's classic abilities got split between powers and rituals, but overall it is the same class. As I said above, at will and encounter powers should make this class a lot less about total spells per day management. The downside is that compared to the massive list of available spells in 3rd ed, there are very few powers and rituals available in 4th ed.
On to Chapter 5 and skills. Compared to 3rd ed, skills in 4th edition are significantly streamlined. Similar skills are grouped into a single skill. Training is either yes or no with a +5 bonus for training, and advancement is mainly by adding in 1/2 character level. As characters level, training is going to become much less significant to the 1/2 character level. Also, any training after 1st level or outside your short class list is going to come at the expense of a feat. The skills themselves are pretty self explanatory. My only complaint is for the physics of jumping. I don't really care about the distances being calculated, but the physics of jumping itself. For a high jump, it doesn't really matter if you have a run up or not, you will jump the same height. This doesn't surprise me all that much since it is a commonly held belief that a run up will give a higher jump. A bigger problem comes in the long jump. The long jump doesn't require that the highest point in the jump be at the center point. In the example they seem to be expecting maximum height at lift off followed by a glide over the pit. Yes, I'm probably being to picky about what are intended to be simple guidelines for a game that isn't about jumping. Other than that nit, the skills themselves look good. The number and grouping is probably right, although I will miss tumble.
Time to start reading again before I can review any more.
Monday, June 16, 2008
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2 comments:
Fighters and other non-spellcasters are more complex, but more interesting. Combat is much more fluid and interesting compared to a fighter's life of "I full round attack again" in 3e. It's less newbie friendly, but I think the trade off is worth in. In practice for the first few levels a fighter (indeed, everyone) will only have five or so powers, so it's pretty easy to manage.
Lack of healing from clerics isn't a big deal. Really, what caused most adventuring parties to camp? Usually the healing was holding out, but the wizard was out of spells. The new system eliminates that. And healing surges mean a party don't need a cleric at all (although it's a nice bonus). Based on actual play, I had a party of level 2 adventurers fighting level 2 and 3 encounters in a dungeon. They did 6 encounters in a row before deciding to retreat and rest. They still had healing surges left; but they suspected that the boss fight was imminent and wanted to have all of their daily powers back.
(They also wanted to abuse one quirk of the system: action points are reset to 1 after an extended rest. You get an extra one after every 2 encounters. So you want to fight the boss monster as the third fight of the day: you'll have 2 action points (assuming you saved them) and won't have used any of your dailies (ditto).)
Fighter as a tank: compared to what? They still wade into the fray and cause enemies to bleed. They are slightly less effective as damage dealing than a rogue/warlock, but in exchange they're armored up. Other than the slight nerfing in damage output (mostly so the rogue can shine somewhere), it seems compatible with the core idea of a fighter in 3e.
Rogue as combat monsters: 3e rogues sucked. At high levels you were deadweight; you really had to be in melee to do damage, you usually didn't do that much damage, and single hit could take you out. Since combat is usually such a large part of D&D, this was bad. So now rogue shine somewhere; assuming some teammates, they're badass killers. Sneaking around is still supported, but it's admittedly deemphasized.
The Warlord name joins a healthy list of bad names, alongside "controller." Perhaps "Sergent" would have been better, but would be less heroic sounding.
I understand that just about anyone can learn to use rituals via a feat. Wizards and clerics just get it by default.
Complexity vs. ease is very much a question of taste. The fighter did get some, although less, variation from feats already.
I haven't seen the rules for healing surges yet, since I'm reviewing as I read and typing whatever comes to mind as I go, so I didn't know they could be used without healing magic. Since I haven't played it yet, I'll take your word that the limit on surges per day isn't a factor.
My disapointment with fighter isn't that the concept changed, it is that there is less opportunities to break out of the standard. My fighter in Jeff's game was a high dex, no armor, tumbler, and kept the grass growing. What I've seen makes me believe that is no longer a reasonable build.
I didn't think rogue was that bad in 3e, but could easily be misremembering.
I wasn't commenting on the Warlord name, but the concept being misplaced. They're better suited to military service than in a small band of heros.
Yes, Ritual Casting is a feat, so anyone willing to spend the feat, and possibly another to train in the Religion or Arcana skills, can learn rituals.
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