An observation

[subplotkudzu]

4E has now been out for nearly a week, and so far I have one, count them one, comment from anyone on my Friends list about it - drcpunk's comment on how the book lays flat while reading it and she's happy the 3E faux-notebook visual design is gone. 

Is everyone as ambivalent about this new system as I am? Did anyone even buy it? Where's the love, people? Or the hate, for that matter?

Comments

[mneme]

Ambivalent, yes. Clearly rushed out -- with fairly significant errata a bare five days after release.

OTOH, looks like fun, and I wanna play it.

Also, I could wish they'd playtested the skill challenge system more -- it's clearly off in several ways (DCs are too high, such that if you follow the rules and don't hand out bonuses like they're going out of style, PCs will fail at 93% of at-level challenges, base system doesn't have enough mechanical interest (no hard "help, defend, or attack full throttle" options like in combat)), and most of the flaws are easily fixable by using a different base.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

with fairly significant errata a bare five days after release.

Oof - that's a bad sign. How long before 4.5?

Something I commented on to others as this was coming out: It sounds like the sort of game I'd support IF they weren't claiming it was D&D. The concepts in it sound workable (even if, by your reckoning, they haven't been playtested enough) but they also don't sound like the OD&D/AD&D that Tweet, Cook and Anderson tried to capture the feel of in 3.0, what with the increased hit points, the powers for fighters and the non-vancian magic. It's not that any of those are bad ideas, but they aren't classically D&D either....

I look forward to more reports from the front lines. Any chance of a review in this months A&E?

[mneme]

What, you don't want to just get it here?

I'd need to play. Hell, I'd like to play, so we'll see.

re eratta: I may overstate a bit; dunno. The MM and DMG errata weren't too bad (just a couple of changes each), but the PH errata ran onto a third page.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

I figure in A&E you'd have had mor eof a chance to formalize your thoughts - especially since I know you'll be writing it on the afternoon on the 21st, some week and a half away.

[mneme]

Well, there is that.

Sort of. I'll be helping run a con on the 21st.

Note to self: Finish zine by the 17th or so.

[mneme]

Oh, re magic -- it's not -not- Vancean, either. You get two at-will powers, and they don't grow that much over your career (some; your stat bonus grows over time, probably from 4ish at 1st to 8ish at 30th, and the base damage doubles at 21st level). Beyond that, you eventually get up to 3 encounter powers and something like 8 daily powers -- so the bulk of your different powers are still basically 1/day, even if there are weaker ones you can use over and over again. Um...plus 4 cantrips you can use over and over again, but those aren't directly combat-useful.

Hmm. Re the at-wills, just looking at the wiz, if she takes the best single-target at-will, cloud of knives, she does 1d6+8=11.5 damage with it at first level, going up to ~23 damage at 30th. If she takes Magic Missile instead, going for tradition, she'll do 2d4+4 = 9 damage at first level, going up to 4d4+8 = 18 damage at 30th (with twice the range).

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Another question: I've heard some stuff about more specific setting information in the rules, like Dwarves hating Giants because they were enslaved by them at some point. True or false? Just curious if they did increase their specificity level that would have to get stripped out for a home brew setting.

[mneme]

There is a default setting in the rules (there was a default setting in the old rules, too, but they changed the default setting for 4e).

That said, I don't think a lot of mechanics rely on it--if anything, things get a little more general.

For instance, Dwarves, like in 3e, have bonuses against giants. In 4e, the background says this was because giants were the servants of the primordials, and enslaved the dwarves. In 3E, I think it's just because dwarves don't like giants; they're competing for the same territory. The same (in 3e) for dwarves having bonuses against orcs and goblin-type critters.

However, in 3e, the dwarven anti-giant bonuses are against "giant class" creatures, and the bonus against orcs and goblins are against creatures with the orc or goblin types. So if you wanted to make dwarves who were allied with giants, or orcs or goblins, you'd have to figure out where to move the bonus to. In 4e, dwarves just have a bonus against anything larger than they are; sure, historically, by the default background, this might be because they fought against the giants(&titans), but one could retheme it easily as dwarves hating dragons (and therefore having bonuses for fighting large creatures), or even dwarves, being smallish medium creatures, being...good at fighting things larger than they are. There's no creature time in it except in the background.