Re: Funny post by one of the WotC D&D Devs

Parvati V wrote:
The skill system is flawed. The importance of the d20 decreases
dramatically over the course of levels. Multiclassing and prestige
classes allow for devastating combos. Non-spellcasters are worth nothing
at high levels, without magic items. The system only allots XP for combat.

3rd Edition was far from perfect, but this is a fairly bizarre litany
of complaints:

(1) While there are areas in which the skill system undoubtedly needed
tweaking, it's unclear exactly what you considered "flawed". Virtually
none of the problems I had with the 3rd Edition skill system were
actually fixed in 4th Edition, but 4th Edition has added a long list
of problems for me.

(2) The importance of the randomizer will always decrease as the size
of the bonus increases (at least, in terms of the percentage to which
the randomizer is contributing to success). This (a) makes sense
because skill does become more important as your level of skill
increases and (b) doesn't mean that, when facing increased challenges,
the randomizer is any less important in terms of a percentage chance
of success. This has not changed in 4th Edition in any way, unless
you're talking about the dissociated way in which the entire world
becomes more difficult as you level up (which I consider to be a
massive flaw, not a feature).

(3) Your complaint about prestige classes and multiclassing. Poorly
designed options in that regard were very problematic once splat books
started coming out with poorly designed expansions. It's entirely
unclear, IMO, that balance is going to be any less problematic once
the flow of 4th Edition supplemental classes and class powers begins.
Comparing what the CharOp boards achieved with 8 years and dozens of
official supplements to what the CharOp boards have achieved with just
the core rulebooks and less than a week is a completely meaningless
comparison.

(4) Yes, the powers and abilities of magic items were explicitly
factored into game balance. (See also: Tony Stark is tougher when he's
wearing the Iron Man suit.) And, yes, using just the core rulebooks
there were problems post-12th level and severe problems post-15th
level in terms of the balance of power between fighters and
spellcasters. But 3rd Edition had already found ways of tweaking that
balance (in the Book of 9 Swords, for example).

(5) 3rd Edition explicitly included rules for awarding non-combat XP.

With all that being said, allow me to repeat myself:

3rd Edition was not perfect. It clearly could have benefitted from
tweaking in several areas and it wouldn't have hurt to see some of the
material developed in the late supplements (reserve feats, the Book of
9 Swords) built back into the core rulebooks. That, personally, was
what I was hoping to see in 4th Edition. Heck, it's what I would have
preferred to see in 3.5.

But instead we got 4th Edition. IMO, based on what I've seen and
played so far, 4th Edition threw the baby out with the bathwater in
the name of fixing some (but not all) of the problems 3rd Edition
had... and then added some new problems to make up for it.

Other people will certainly disagree. Certainly if you don't care
about dissociated mechanics or the fact that 4th Edition offers fewer
opportunities to customize your character, 4th Edition will look a lot
better to you than it does to me (since I do care about those things).

That and 4E is a tactical miniatures game rather than D&D.

And the difference from 3.5 in this regard is?

Considerable. 3rd Edition was originally designed to model real world
measurements: Input those measurements into the system and you got
back meaningful output. If chose to use miniatures, the precision of
measurement provided was rewarded by the system. (In fact, you could
even play gridless -- so that there was a difference between 5' from
someone and 6' from someone -- and the system would reward that extra
level of precision.) But this precision was not required for the
system to work.

3.5 kinda weakened this by measuring everything in squares, but it
didn't fundamentally change the system. There was a facade emphasizing
miniatures play, but the system still fundamentally responded to real
world measurements and didn't require precision measurement (although
it did reward precision measurement).

4th Edition, OTOH, is heavily dependent on the grid. Entire classes,
powers, and monsters are balanced around very precise movement on a
grid.

--
Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net
.

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