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[kv]

Hey, everyone.

I've been busy learning and running 4th edition for Dungeons and Dragons, and it seems to be very popular, but I'm curious if any of you have played it, and if you have, what your thoughts are.

The classes are put together better- every class has a role in the game, and multiple classes have the same role in the party, so a Warlord and a Cleric can heal party members, a fighter and a paladin can muscle through fights (paladins are cool again!), and rangers and rogues strike at the enemies in a very lethal way. There are no sorcerers in 4th edition yet, but Warlocks are a lot cooler, and Wizards are a 'more and faster' build that allows them to take part in combat in exciting ways.

Every class has something cool to do every round- wizards no longer run out of spells, clerics do more than just heal, fighters and rangers and rogues can do more than just attack or sneak every round.

Has anyone tried it?

  -kv

[ROOTless]

Haven't tried it.

What's your evaluation? Positive?

[Zone]

I don't care if 4th ed is better than sex, after all the damn money (millions by now probably) Hunny has spent on 3 and 3.5 there is no way in hell that we're switching to a new ed just because one is out there

[ROOTless]

I don't care if 4th ed is better than sex,

I rather doubt that it is

[kv]

Yeah, I'm rather irritated every time they bring out a new edition, because the hundreds of dollars I've spent on the previous edition make me want to not spend another cent on the new books. :/

That being said, I really REALLY like 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons. Somewhere between 2nd edition and 3.5, there was this clutter of rules that didn't make any sense. People just made builds using the biggest and baddest (most recent) books, which made the older books even more outdated. Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords? That thing almost wrecked our group- everyone wanted to play a swordsage or warblade or crusader, because they were so bad-assed that no one needed to play a fighter in the group. We had three of those, and no thieves in the group, and one mage. It was the most horribly unbalanced group I've ever played in.

In 4th edition, the power balance has been restored between classes. Everyone has something cool to do every round- whether you're a fighter or a wizard, you have powers to use each encounter, and powers to use every day. The daily powers are more powerful, and fun to use, and it's exciting to get to use them in combat.

Wizards are no longer 'tapped out' when they use a certain amount of spells- they're able to use basic cantrips, minor attack spells (like Magic Missile), and rituals whenever they want, although rituals (non-combat oriented spells) are only for use outside encounters.

Priests are no longer a portable box of band-aids, because every hero has a function called 'healing surges,' which allow them to restore a measure of their lost hit points. Clerics are still powerful, and they heal companions, but a new class (Warlord) also heals the heroes, so there's less emphasis on the cleric as a healbot. Heroes are also able to heal themselves once an encounter using a power called "Second Wind," so even without a healer, a party can function.

I like 4th edition, and I play it all the time. I DM games at the local game shop, teaching 4th edition to people (it's free to people playing in my games), and I like it.

If you're even curious, I would recommend finding a local game store, and seeing if you can sit in an a game. It's fun, and it should be pretty free.

  -kv

[Jester]

I haven't tried it yet. I've been playing alot of warhammer fantasy roleplaying. I don't plan on getting it any time soon.

[Ruski]

Things I like about 4th edition:
Priests can heal every turn. much like fighters can swing their sword every turn. horrah for balance!
Wizards and Warlocks can cast spells more than once a day at first level, thus allowing you to actually play a magic user at a level lower than 15.
Strategy in combat actually works.  use your high DPS classes like rouges to take out the leaders, and your heavy hitting tanks to soak up the minions. looks like someone who has actually seen a group work together in an MMORPG take the strategies of what works, and transfered it to pen and paper.

Things I dislike about 4th edition:
a fighter is a fighter is a fighter. use an axe or a sword: it doesn't matter. you'll have the same three skills as every other fighter. and the same job in a party. go stand up front and soak damage.  the classes are very cookie-cutter-ish.
if you've seen one warlock, you've seen them all. it's nice to have everyone have a spot to work together in a party, and to have all the classes balanced out equally, but a little more control within the individual classes would be nice. all you can currently change is the flavor text. an ice mage and a fire mage do exactly the same damage, the only difference is if you say the goblin burns to death, or if it's frozen solid in a block of ice.
I'm sure that with $400 worth of supplements and 2 years from now there'll be a nice variety out there, but for right now, the game has turned into the experience point grinder that you get in the MMO variety of combat. fun for the first level or two, when the graphics are new, but after a couple of nearly identical encounters where you do nearly the same thing every time, and you start to wish for some skill set to set  yourself apart from the other (insert your class here)'s out there.

that's my take on it anyways.
-RuskiFace the Pirate

[Jester]

i remember reading that if a fighter has a sword he will be able to do different things than one with an axe. So you're saying that's not true?

[kv]

Yeah, there is. Unfortunately, with my brothers, we've only been able to play once or twice, so everyone has a first level character, and then the next time we play, everyone has a different first level character, so there hasn't been a lot of the cool specialization going on.

In the new D&D system, while you start of with a very similar skillset for the classes, you diversify as you level up, gaining more and more different powers, making the already cool characters very cool in different ways. Unfortunately, you don't get to see a lot of that if you only play once every few months.

  -kv

[Jester]

tru dat

[Capt_North]

I gave it a play and it was pretty fun, my bro sprung for the box set with all the core books. if he calls me to play im cool, bu tim not spending a wooden nickel on any books for it. i called it quits when i got the core 3rd edition books and some good extras, and next thing i know they put out 3.5 literally 2 days later.. and the best part was the games i had just joined to play were all immediatly upgrading to 3.5, so if i wanted to play, i had to upgrade to.  after that i washed my hands of it..

But, playing was pretty fun, once you get the hang you can churn out a character pretty fast, but as mentioned, thats from the fairly cooky cutter creation system. combat flowed smoothly enough, and thats with three people basicly screwwing round while playing (nothing says screwwing around for fun like playing a dragonspawn (not as twink as it sounds actually i was happy to find) ranger dual wielding 2 kolbold corpses as make shift flails cause he got disarmed and lost his weapon earlier..)... Yeah. it was an interisting game.. and this wasnt the cool action movie where someone picks up some random thing and turns it into a weapon with all these cool moves either..

[Ruski]

yea, but how many other weapons beg you to stop hitting people? most *intelligent* weapons are all blood thirsty.  whereas the makeshift Kolbold clubs are more likely to be 'anti violence'
now... if you could just go about enchanting them with a bonus to hit somehow...

-RuskiFace the Pirate

[Jester]

Heya guys, I know we haven't discussed this in a while but I finally got into a 4th edition game and I'm really liking it. The group mechanics are great. I'm playing a 2 handed axe dwarf fighter so I'm kinda a quasi striker defender. Our group is rounded out having a true defender fighter, a melee ranger, a bard, a shaman, and we're getting a rogue joining us soon. so our makup is 2 defenders, 2 strikers, ad 2 leaders. Nice 

[kv]

Yeah- one thing I've really noticed is that people who love WoW LOVE 4th edition, which I think was part of the point.

That sounds like a good group, though. Any group with two healers is going to be trouble for a DM. I think I would send hundreds of minions and a bunch of controllers after you guys. I recently started a small game with my friends and wife (our large group has nine players, which is too much for any one DM), so it's a small game with five players. We have one defender (fighter), two strikers (barbarian and rogue), one controller (invoker), and one leader (bard). They're a pretty fun group to write encounters for, that's for sure!

  -kv

[Jester]

sounds great! Did you know PHB is in the works and if you have D&D insider you get to play test the Monk? From what I've been told you're not pretty much forced to go unarmed. You can use whatever monk weapon you want and all the abilities work just fine. So you can play a staff monk, sai monk, unarmed monk, or whatever other type of weapon they have. I have a couple friends who are subsribed to the insider. I'm gonna try and get me a copy.