Re: Review: 4th Ed

On Jun 9, 9:55 pm, Some Guy <noemailformetha...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
eeddc...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Jun 8, 8:27 pm, Some Guy <noemailformetha...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Shawn Wilson wrote:
Yay! I get to be sort of first!
As an update to D&D it's a 'Not worth it'
As its own system: 'Not worth it'.
I will not switch. 3.5 does almost everything better.
I liked every one of the core books better in 3.5. The books all have
less content than their predecessors and are less detailed and more
juvenile in tone.
HUGE stat point increase, including +1 to *everything* at 11 AND 21...
The new magic system for Wizards manages mostly NOT to rid us
(finally) of the Vancian magic system. Weak spells are unlimited in
use.
Rangers are STILL limited to missile OR two weapon varieties.
Races adds Tiefling, Dragonborn, and a new Elf race (why???). Gnomes
and half-Orcs are gone.
Classes adds Warchief (or whatever). Barbarian, Monk and Sorcerer are
gone.
Everything is far more gamey, at the expense of role playing
interest. D&D used to have the potential to rival GURPS, no longer.
No more random hit points. Con does NOT add hit points per level
(adds 'recoveries' instead)
Multiple opportunites in combat to take a roecovery (or whatever they
call it). Each one restores 1/4 of your total hitpoints. Dog pile
tactics are de rigure...
No skill points, but everyone knew that.
Pretty much EVERYTHING is based on level / 2, skills, defenses, BAB...
Saves are entirely changed. You now have Will defense, Fortitude
defense, Dexterity defense and AC.
Magic Items are now in the players Handbook. Dms Guide now has no
interesting content and is almost all advice for Greenhorns. (if
there was anything else it was crap)
All in all a fiasco.
My first impression: Lots of big illustrations, bigger font, more white
space = less actual content. They've gone graphics-heavy, which is not
good.

I've started at the beginning of the PHB and so far made it up to the
cleric chapter. Clerics seem to have lost a lot of their flavor. The
vast majority of their special powers translate to "hit someone and then
goofy effect X takes place," where goofy effect X is something like "an
ally heals some damage" or "you get to move some other foe besides the
one you hit halfway across the battlefied a few squares."

Hoo boy, I saw that too.

I had already read the warlock and wizard classes before I got the
books, and liked what I saw. I also sorta liked the Fighter stuff. But
yeah, when I got the books on Friday I also started reading through
the PHB, got to the Cleric class, and was blown away by how completely
stupid the powers are. "You need healing? Fine, I'll whack an ogre for
you." WTF?!?

Or maybe one of your own party members, if an ogre isn't handy.

AND EVERY SINGLE POWER IS ALMOST THE SAME THING! And, once I saw that,
I realized it was the same for Fighters too. And once I noticed that,
I realized it was also the same for Wizards and Warlocks.

I've actually almost fallen asleep twice now working my way through the
descriptions of the fighter and paladin powers. They are so similar it
is making it hard to concentrate.


I've only tried to get through the wizard spells as that's what I was
most interested in, and I couldn't even get through those.

To be blunt: I've read *dictionaries* that held my interest more easily
than this.

Yes, unfortunately. They did say they were trying to make them more
like reference manuals, but I think they went a bit too far - or
perhaps they didn't go far enough again - by repeating all this samey
stuff. If they'd just given us a formula on how to figure out all
this stuff with the unique stuff for each spell it would have taken up
a lot less room.

- Justisaur
.

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