The Official "4e Critique and Rebuttal" Thread

[Darwinism]

You guys are all being trolled. Darwinism's arguments break down to "nuh-uh" and "3e did it, too" and "you're gay."

As someone already noted, Darwinism, please read this and understand why I don't like 4e (even though I picked up Essentials).

Shit I can't handle: minions, fighter dailies, padded sumo. Two of those things I can't handle because I 'sperg over them. The other one is an irritation.

The one thing that Essentials has done right is solo monsters. The game definitely needs a system for them, and while 4e did a piss-poor job of guiding players on making solo monsters, the later renditions of solo monsters are damn good. The Monster Vault is a quality publication, probably the best version of a Monster Manual that has been printed. There's enough fluff to satisfy me, and the crunch works pretty well (even if minions are still goofy as shit).

Oh hey look another challenger that decries facets of 4E without providing any evidence! Also I read that page and it has nothing to do with 4E even if you want it to; 4E mechanics are consistent throughout the game. Unless you're talking about the idiotic minions-in-a-sandstorm thing. Then you're just missing the point of minions; 1HP only exists for combat, outside of combat there is absolutely no need to track exact HP for anyone but the party because why in the name of god would you want your DM track the HP of an entire city just because a sandstorm hits it?

[Darwinism]

You guys are all being trolled. Darwinism's arguments break down to "nuh-uh" and "3e did it, too" and "you're gay."

As someone already noted, Darwinism, please read this and understand why I don't like 4e (even though I picked up Essentials).

Shit I can't handle: minions, fighter dailies, padded sumo. Two of those things I can't handle because I 'sperg over them. The other one is an irritation.

The one thing that Essentials has done right is solo monsters. The game definitely needs a system for them, and while 4e did a piss-poor job of guiding players on making solo monsters, the later renditions of solo monsters are damn good. The Monster Vault is a quality publication, probably the best version of a Monster Manual that has been printed. There's enough fluff to satisfy me, and the crunch works pretty well (even if minions are still goofy as shit).

Oh hey look another challenger that decries facets of 4E without providing any evidence! Also I read that page and it has nothing to do with 4E even if you want it to; 4E mechanics are consistent throughout the game. Unless you're talking about the idiotic minions-in-a-sandstorm thing. Then you're just missing the point of minions; 1HP only exists for combat, outside of combat there is absolutely no need to track exact HP for anyone but the party because why in the name of god would you want your DM track the HP of an entire city just because a sandstorm hits it?

"Okay, DM, roll damage for six thousand inhabitants else my verisimilitude is going to be broken," to which he responds, "Get the hell out of my house."

[Ravengm]

Congratulations on responding to your own post.

[Gnosticism Is A Hoot]

Elennsar failed in an instructive way. Shadzar fails in an amusing way. This guy is just a little bit sad.

[Lago PARANOIA]

As far as point one on FrankTrollman's caster balance goes, I totally think that we need a thread ripping into 4E's difficulty. It gets really thrown off a few levels before epic and never recovers; I mean the game is balanced on the assumption of loser classes like a party of bards, sorcerers, and non-thunderglaive swordmages being able to win an encounter--but the wizard can easily do triple the damage of a sorcerer and between sustainable daily zones and enlarge spell + flame burst/resounding thunder can do about six times a sorcerer in damage in crunch situations.

The gap between optimized and unoptimized builds in 4E is intense. Now to be absolutely fair there is actually a very good selection of optimized builds for 4E. It's far richer than you'd expect. The ranger gets all of the spotlight because they have absolutely no weaknesses and are very easy to cheese out, but warlords and battleminds and rogues and wizards and fighters and druids are still in the same ballpark. To say nothing of well-oiled builds that don't have obvious DPR but still completely shut down enemy actions like the thunderglaive and the mage and the warlock. But seriously, there are party configurations in 4E that can take out a paragon-tier monster party in a single round nowadays. They're not even that hard to build or obviously powergamey; two warlords (a bravura and a tactical), a ranger, a fighter, and a wizard. A druid or a rogue can replace one of those builds, too.

By contrast Titanium Dragon did a series of playtests on the Character Optimization forums back in the day that picked up all of the 'classic' 4E powergaming builds (before Martial Power and the Adventurer's Vault blew everything open) like Hammer Bros. 1.0 and the Scimitar Ranger and concluded that it took epic-level parties about a 7-9 rounds on average to beat an encounter of equal level. Hell, I'll try to find the old playtest results for you guys.

[Winnah]

A simple question.

What is the big deal about monsters/enemies not having the same access to the same customisation tools as players?

I'll provide an example why this is an issue for me. In previous editions I had to kit some monsters out, customise feats, allies etc., in order to make them competitive for PC's. It made sense to me that a powerful monster would have cool tricks and gear at their disposal. Call it vermisillitude or whatever.

When designing enemies, I had the same resources that players used to customise their characters. So I had to optimise a monster just enough for it to be a challenge, not too much for it to be a pushover. Basicly using the same tricks, tactics and spells that a character may have access to.

4e took this away. Monsters operate by a different set of rules to the players. I am not saying it is perfect in implementation, but surely this is an advantage?

Let me know if this has already been discussed, I would like to read it if that is so.

oh. Hi Welcome!

[Username17]

What is the big deal about monsters/enemies not having the same access to the same customisation tools as players?

That's a bit complicated. The answer is: If you rephrased that to be "what is the big deal with the players not having access to the same tools as the monsters, the answer would be "Nothing". There is nothing inherently wrong with using different formulas to make the opposition as you use to make the player characters. The DM makes a lot more enemies than the players make characters, so it is good and right and proper that team monster has short forms that the players don't. But that's not what you just said. You just said that the monsters don't have access to the customization tools available to the PCs. And that's fucked up. It means that the players can't ever fight a mirror match or go up against one of their own gone bad. And that's fucked.

There are always going to be monster options that are not PC options. As a PC, you aren't allowed to play an acidic treasure chest or a trapdoor spider. But you could easily be expected to fight one of those things. And one of the monster options really should be some kind of quick start setup where you get minimal battle stats and don't have to fucking worry about whether they have a background in pig farming or not. But there is a legitimate narrative need to at some times face against an enemy who is recognizably similar to what the PCs are, or is even specifically one of the PCs (or former PCs) turned evil. So taking away the option to make an NPC using the PC options is something that requires a lot of justification. Certainly more justification than "We thought the damage/hit point disparity between PCs and monsters was cool in Final Fantasy and Everquest".

-Username17

[Winnah]

Fair enough. I did not even think about nature of the question.

My experience with 4e NPC templates has been that they are lackluster in comparison to other elite monsters. More options to keep track of, but not more powerful.

I have a question about encounter balance, but I am not sure how to prhase it. Not sure it belongs in this thread either.

Thanks for the respone. It's given me a bit to think about.

[Psychic Robot]

Oh hey look another challenger that decries facets of 4E without providing any evidence!

The arrogance it took to write this sentence is astounding.

[Darwinism]

What is the big deal about monsters/enemies not having the same access to the same customisation tools as players?

That's a bit complicated. The answer is: If you rephrased that to be "what is the big deal with the players not having access to the same tools as the monsters, the answer would be "Nothing". There is nothing inherently wrong with using different formulas to make the opposition as you use to make the player characters. The DM makes a lot more enemies than the players make characters, so it is good and right and proper that team monster has short forms that the players don't. But that's not what you just said. You just said that the monsters don't have access to the customization tools available to the PCs. And that's fucked up. It means that the players can't ever fight a mirror match or go up against one of their own gone bad. And that's fucked.

There are always going to be monster options that are not PC options. As a PC, you aren't allowed to play an acidic treasure chest or a trapdoor spider. But you could easily be expected to fight one of those things. And one of the monster options really should be some kind of quick start setup where you get minimal battle stats and don't have to fucking worry about whether they have a background in pig farming or not. But there is a legitimate narrative need to at some times face against an enemy who is recognizably similar to what the PCs are, or is even specifically one of the PCs (or former PCs) turned evil. So taking away the option to make an NPC using the PC options is something that requires a lot of justification. Certainly more justification than "We thought the damage/hit point disparity between PCs and monsters was cool in Final Fantasy and Everquest".

-Username17

Why can't you, though? What is stopping you from throwing an enemy at the party who is simply an NPC made with PC rules? Because there is absolutely nothing saying, "Thou shalt not use PC options for NPCs." Instead it's assumed to be a generally bad idea because player damage outpaces player HP fairly easily.

So, in short, if you want your party to run up against a NPC who was built as a PC go for it, but he's going to die very quickly. But there is nothing stopping you from doing this. You just don't build him with DM tools, you use the character builder. Because he's a character. Not a monster.

[Winnah]

Why can't you, though? What is stopping you from throwing an enemy at the party who is simply an NPC made with PC rules? Because there is absolutely nothing saying, "Thou shalt not use PC options for NPCs." Instead it's assumed to be a generally bad idea because player damage outpaces player HP fairly easily.

So, in short, if you want your party to run up against a NPC who was built as a PC go for it, but he's going to die very quickly. But there is nothing stopping you from doing this. You just don't build him with DM tools, you use the character builder. Because he's a character. Not a monster.

But in order to make him competitive, that character needs to have magical gear just like the PC's. That either blows wealth allocation for that level, or makes that character a pushover if you take his toys away.

You could give him inherant bonuses, but then the character stops being like a normal character. Not to mention issues with XP and encounter bugeting, the incentive to blow Daily resources immediately and other concerns. The system is not balanced for PvP.

I had thought that enemies drawing their abilities from a different well was a clear advantage for 4e. Now I am not so sure.

[Doom]

Now that I have enough text, I believe Darwin is a completely different troll than the one I thought he was...heckuva similar style, though.

Anyway, you could just make the NPC higher level than the party (there's little difference between an extra +1 on the armor and two levels, after all)...but it still would be a nightmare trying to keep track of all the abilities, and good luck justifying why the NPC doesn't have any magic weapons or whatever.

[Roy]

oh. Hi Welcome!

Fail.

Also, Darwinism needs to be a victim of his own name. He is clearly unfit for the gene pool, and certainly not the gaming community.

[fbmf]

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Darwinism, just FYI since you are new here, we take a very dim view of blatant and obvious trolling.

Also, there is no rule against signing your posts. I sign my posts and have done so since my WotC days. Get over it.
[/TGFBS]

[Winnah]

Fail.

Also, Darwinism needs to be a victim of his own name. He is clearly unfit for the gene pool, and certainly not the gaming community.

Hi Welcome!

[Lago PARANOIA]

Well, shit, I can't find those playtest threads. But trust me when I say that the power creep in this edition is immense. I'm actually an advocate of power creep as both a method of balance and as a necessary evil, but they took things way too far.

A 24th level melee Stormwarden ranger made of recent material nowadays seriously has like a +60 damage bonus and a +7 attack bonus over their counterparts in the beginning of the edition--though honestly they should've had like +3 of that to begin with. And their utility powers have gone from 'decent' to 'absolutely dominating'. And they got a full suite of game-changing encounter attack powers. And without too much of a feat investment can establish a ZoC that would have been the envy of fighters back then (if fighters didn't get similar and even better benefits). Etc. etc. Even striker classes consistently rated the 'worst' on the CharOp boards can contemptuously outdamage classic DPR builds like Hammer Bros. 1.0 and the Bugbear Rogue nowadays.

I remember back when people freaked out over a typo in the original PHB where the warlord had access to a minor-action encounter attack (Chimera Battle Tactics or something?) power at level 27. It seems kind of quaint nowadays; a power like that would get rated black in most character optimization guides nowadays that.

[Roy]

Fail.

Also, Darwinism needs to be a victim of his own name. He is clearly unfit for the gene pool, and certainly not the gaming community.

Hi Welcome!

Fail again. You're doing it wrong. Also, don't do it right. You'll annoy the fence building mother fucker.

[Lago PARANOIA]

In fact, I think that it'd be fun for me to make a classic Pit Fighter Ranger (before the errata) made of material solely from the PHB and compare him against a modern Storminglord Ranger.

[Winnah]

Fail again. You're doing it wrong. Also, don't do it right. You'll annoy the fence building mother fucker.

Hi Welcome!

Well, shit, I can't find those playtest threads. But trust me when I say that the power creep in this edition is immense. I'm actually an advocate of power creep as both a method of balance and as a necessary evil, but they took things way too far.

I'm not sure I follow what you mean here. From what I understand, the power creep has been somewhat lopsided in this edition. As you have said in another post, there are bastard classes that receive no real support. It seems to me this results in a complete loss of balance and tips the scales in favour of a few classes. Sure, the Ranger has not suffered, but outside of niche builds, an Assassin is just innefective...At least until the Shadow Power book come out anyway.

I have to wonder if this will make the new Vampire and Blackguard classes weaker then other options, or whether these new classes will be given more powerful tools in order to keep them competitive and attractive to players.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The difference is relative of course. The breakdown of the role system and the fact that A) the monster system was balanced for a suboptimal party and B) power creep across the board is larger than the amount of power monsters gained between MM1/MM2/MM3/MV means that unlike in 3rd Edition a party of a bard/warlock/strength paladin/assassin/invoker could get somewhere with their lives.

Because 4E is actually a pretty easy game once you get into paragon tier and beyond. That's how they 'solved' the problem of suboptimal characters; the difference between picking a warlord and a shaman is no longer an issue of failing vs. winning, it's an issue of 'I want to beat level-appropriate encounters in 2 rounds' versus 'I want to beat level-appropriate encounters in 6 rounds'.

Of course that means that if you try too hard you're still a dick for bowling a 300 blindfolded and from the pit while the other players can't break 100 even with plastic gutter guards. But as long as even the person in last place still gets a painted gold trophy, a quote-tee, and a pizza party it's still balanced, right?

[Swordslinger]

That's a bit complicated. The answer is: If you rephrased that to be "what is the big deal with the players not having access to the same tools as the monsters, the answer would be "Nothing". There is nothing inherently wrong with using different formulas to make the opposition as you use to make the player characters. The DM makes a lot more enemies than the players make characters, so it is good and right and proper that team monster has short forms that the players don't. But that's not what you just said. You just said that the monsters don't have access to the customization tools available to the PCs. And that's fucked up. It means that the players can't ever fight a mirror match or go up against one of their own gone bad. And that's fucked.

This is another one of the blatant lies and misconceptions spread here about 4E. 4E monster rules have no limitations, only guidelines. If you feel the need as a DM you can just flip through the PC powers page and give monsters the abilities and stats a PC would have at that level. It's generally a bad idea to hand out daily powers to monsters because daily = encounter. But if for whatever reason you wanted to give PCs the idea that they were fighting a rival paladin, you could.

Higher monster HP is because monsters don't have healing as a general rule. It makes them simpler to run. The fact that I had to tell you that just shows that you're too blinded by 4E hate to make any kind of rational arguments.

As far as I'm concerned, Lago is pretty much the only one here on this thread giving legitimate criticisms of 4E, because it's clear he's actually done some research on it. While it's true that power creep has hit 4E hard, It's still better than 3E, because 3E was broken right out of the box. You can play an essentials only game, or a game that eliminates all the "power" books for 4E, and you'll be reasonably okay. There doesn't exist a version of 3rd edition that isn't broken right in the core rules.

[Lago PARANOIA]

But if for whatever reason you wanted to give PCs the idea that they were fighting a rival paladin, you could.

Uh, yeah, THAT'S not true. Only if you want the fight to become a rocket-launcher tag anti-climax or if you're making their paladin-ness an informed attribute; that is, they're fighting a paladin because YOU SAY SO... let's just quietly ignore the fact that paladin staples like lay on hands would be completely busted in the hands of a monster.

Higher monster HP is because monsters don't have healing as a general rule. It makes them simpler to run.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... eAsymmetry

That's total videogame logic. As in, there's no reason to do that other than 'videogames did that and so should we!'

I understand and sympathsize with complaints that high-level D&D in previous editions turned into games of rocket-launcher tag. But they had ways to deal with this other than breaking willing suspension of disbelief. And they fucked it up anyway; solo monsters have 1000+ hit points once you got into epic tier and until power creep hit the edition like a freight truck even a striker could only get up to about 50 DPR per round. A lot of strikers are still stuck at that level and it's only not a problem because... well, see below.

You can play an essentials only game, or a game that eliminates all the "power" books for 4E, and you'll be reasonably okay.

That's because 4E is easy once you get past level 6-7, not because it's a model of great balance. The gap in power between a warlord focused for DPR and a warlock trying to do the same is huge. You pretty much have to gimp your characters by playing at the level of optimization and strategy the game devs recommend; a team of bow rangers and wizards playing to win would steamroll challenges.

The only reason why nobody really complains is that everyone gets to go home feeling good; it doesn't matter if you're an unremarkable high school basketball captain or Kobe Bryant because you're playing against modestly talented middle schoolers. Martial Archetype rogues being able to outdamage two assassins doesn't matter because EVERYONE is invited to the pizza party these days, even the benchwarmers.

Don't get me wrong. That's a defensible, even laudable design decision--beginners are more easily frustrated than veterans and in order to convince them to stick with it you shouldn't be pissing in their cheerios as soon as the game starts.

[Ravengm]

If you feel the need as a DM you can just flip through the PC powers page and give monsters the abilities and stats a PC would have at that level. It's generally a bad idea to hand out daily powers to monsters because daily = encounter. But if for whatever reason you wanted to give PCs the idea that they were fighting a rival paladin, you could.

That's the problem he's talking about though. You're not making a PC, you're making a monster that has similar powers to a PC. Since the power schedule varies wildly between standard monsters and PC characters (dailies don't really have a meaning, like you said, etc.), it's both inadvisable and unpredictable to go PvP. It's either going to be a joke, since PC classes are almost always the Glass Cannon type and will die in a round, or extraordinarily deadly, because an optimized "mirror image" party of "PCs" can TPK just as easily as the PC party can TPK them.

Besides, MC keeping track of five (assuming standard party size) PC-equivalent monsters verges on ridiculous. Combat is slow enough already.

While it's true that power creep has hit 4E hard, It's still better than 3E, because 3E was broken right out of the box. You can play an essentials only game, or a game that eliminates all the "power" books for 4E, and you'll be reasonably okay. There doesn't exist a version of 3rd edition that isn't broken right in the core rules.

So was 4E. Half the game doesn't work--the skill challenge system. It was unplayable out of the box, and it still is. It's true that the majority of the game is playable, because you should ignore skill challenges in favor of MTP anyway. But that just brings the game back into "No Items, No Fun, Combat Only, Final Destination" territory. That's been touched on, and it doesn't set D&D apart from other games that have done combat-only, and done it better.

Cutting out books in favor of "balance" is missing the point. The power level of the game doesn't determine how classes stack up against each other, it just determines... well, the power level of the game. You can play pig farmers or demi-gods, but as long as everyone's on that same power scale, then whatever. Cutting out books just changes the options people have to Not Suck.

[Darwinism]

So many of the assumptions about 4E getting easy or that X or Y can completely break the game or so on assumes that your DM is a robot who can only ever follow the rules as written, which ignores the entire point of a DM.

I dunno about you guys but all of my DMs have been people and the good ones know that they can tweak adventures to suit their players level of competence.

So was 4E. Half the game doesn't work--the skill challenge system. It was unplayable out of the box, and it still is. It's true that the majority of the game is playable, because you should ignore skill challenges in favor of MTP anyway. But that just brings the game back into "No Items, No Fun, Combat Only, Final Destination" territory. That's been touched on, and it doesn't set D&D apart from other games that have done combat-only, and done it better.

Please stop presenting opinions as facts; skill challenges work in a mechanical sense. As most DMs use them, as in announcing to the players that they're partaking in a challenge, I dislike them, but that doesn't mean they're broken.

Also, if you really think skills are half the game in any edition of D&D you're forgetting that D&D is, at its roots, a wargame with roleplaying themes on the side. That doesn't mean you can't turn it into a more roleplaying-centric game but measure up the space in any PHB spent on non-combat-oriented facets of the game and then measure the space spent on things relevant to combat.

[CCarter]

But in order to make him competitive, that character needs to have magical gear just like the PC's. That either blows wealth allocation for that level, or makes that character a pushover if you take his toys away.

You could give him inherant bonuses, but then the character stops being like a normal character. Not to mention issues with XP and encounter bugeting, the incentive to blow Daily resources immediately and other concerns. The system is not balanced for PvP.

I had thought that enemies drawing their abilities from a different well was a clear advantage for 4e. Now I am not so sure.

The need for the items to be competitive ties back into the Magical Christmas Tree design issue as well: that characters need magical items to remain competitive. Both 3E and 4E fail here.

I liked 3E monster building since I liked modular customizability with monsters within the rules- the ability to give your Hydras Multisnatch or the acquatic elf with morkoth blood Residual Rebound or the wolf Stand Still.

Most of the 3E monsters out of the book really could be better designed - they get all their special abilities for free rather than taking up a feat slot - like rend or the ability to fight with two weapons without penalty for some of the demons - which of course left the designers scratching their heads on what to do with their actual feat slots and taking crud like Toughness. However, by the end of 3.5 there were enough feats out there that you could actually have fit quite a few of the monster abilities within a feat paradigm, with an exchange of feats having an actual opportunity cost. Certainly no need to remove all feats from monsters/NPCs (how are the bad guys casting rituals again?)