posted
Somebody enlighten me on this issue: a lot of people think that humans are really underpowered. I do not understand this. If you think so, why?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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When you pick your class, you choose two at will powers out of four. (Unless you're a warlock where one gets picked for you, or a wizard where you have five options.) The classes have two builds in mind with two powers each keyed to the strengths of that build. So giving you one more only gives you an ability you're not really designed for. It increases your flexibility, but most of the time it gives you something you don't really want or don't have a high enough stat to use effectively. (Assuming you went point buy. Roll and all bets are off.)
Now, the half-elf is awesome. You get to pick a different class's at will and use it as an encounter power. The buffing cleric I made for Keep on the Shadowfell has the paladin's Bolstering Strike as her extra. It gives me a little versitility with an attack power, but it's still keyed to my highest stats. That's useful.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Because they only get +2 to a single stat. In 3rd edition, a +2 stat enhancement was very, very strong.
But in 4th, from what I've seen, no class is even remotely MAD. In fact, frequently a given class will have 2-3 complete dump stats; stats they gain no benefit from, aside from I guess skills relevant to that stat. This is particularly true because you get "best of two" applied to defenses, and attack and damage rolls are no longer dependent on strength unless that's your character's shtick.
So unless your race's two stat mods directly enhance your classes core abilities (dragonborn paladins, halfling rogues) you could easily gain NO benefit from one of them, making you effectively a human anyway. Add to this the fact that you get quite a few stat enhancements over the course of 30 levels, and they mean less still.
Humans seem quite good. +1 to all three defenses is strong... that's essentially giving you a decent part of "+2 effective level". The extra at-will ability is likewise quite strong. The at-will abilities aren't overly powerful, but oftentimes they each have a useful niche to fill, so having another one is just that much more useful. The extra feat and skill on top of all that are just icing.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
my future roommate is being annoying "You should invest in Heroclix Blayne! No one's going to play D&D!"
Considering I already made the investment in 3.5E books its like asking someone to get the different cruddier car because it has more seats.
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quote:The classes have two builds in mind with two powers each keyed to the strengths of that build. So giving you one more only gives you an ability you're not really designed for.
I don't think this is actually true at all. Each build just has recommendations for which two at-wills are the most tied into their straightforward concept. It's more saying "since you only get two at-wills, the selection most applicable to your build is _____." It does not lessen the extraordinary benefit of picking up a third at-will.
Example 1: Rogue. Sly Flourish is keyed to Charisma, Riposte Strike is keyed to Strength. Even with one point of Charisma bonus, Sly Flourish is your most damaging attack. Even without any strength bonus at all, Riposte Strike is great, but nominally they should be considered 'keyed in' to your build. For either build, this leaves two additional at-wills with no key-in to either build; an attack that allows you to shift two squares before attacking, and an attack that targets their Reflex defense.
A human is capable of having both of these in addition to their secondary stat empowered at-will. That's absurdly cool.
Example 2: Wizard. A human wizard has three of five at-wills. You could have, for instance, the Ranged 20 2d4, the Blast 1, and the Close Burst push(wis).
That's enough to make an eladrin wizard outright envious.
The extra at-will is what I presently consider to be the absolute best individual racial advantage in the game. Others in the top tier list include the elven attack reroll, halfling defensive reroll, eladrin education, dwarven movement resistance, etc — but the extra at-will trumps these all.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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As near as I can tell, the rogue's deft strike is not as good as you mentioned above. Unlike the ranger's nimble strike, deft strike says you can "move 2 squares before you attack". Not shift. Move. Substantially worse. Still useful for the dodger rogue that gets his opportunity AC really high and prances around provoking from the fighter's marked enemies, but yeah. Not nearly as good as it seemed at first glance.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Hi. Yesterday I DMed H1 - Keep on the Shadowfell for my regular gaming group. As it contains a summary of the rules and pre-generated characters, we were able to play even though Amazon has yet to deliver my books (since I live in Brazil, it may take another two or three weeks ). The rules are very intuitive (IMHO) for experienced players, and the combat system is both dynamic and innovative.
Now...
Cleric - madly nerfed. Gone is the 3rd edition powerhouse. He's still the healing/buff specialist, though.
Fighter - Just...wow...the pregen character is a dwarf fighter wielding a two-handed maul. It really puts the "h" into "hurt".
Paladin - Immortal. That's all I can say. It takes a lot, I mean, A LOT to bring a pally down, nowadays.
Warlord - A.K.A. "Armored Cheerleader", "Dancemaster". Fun and Games for all! If you have a Warlord in your party, expect miniatures to move around the battlemat a lot.
Wizard - With magic missiles at will and two very effective area nukes at first level, it stay true to its crowd-killer purpose since the beginning.
We didn't finish it yet. Will probably do it next sunday. We could already notice, though, that if pcs are tougher, so are the monsters. Kobolds, for example, are a very greater (they are still short, just tougher) menace than in previous incarnations of the game.
Well... that's it for now.
Posts: 1785 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I played a bit of Keep on the Shadowfell on Friday as Briggs the Halfling Rogue. I had a blast. Combat is fast and intuitive, and there was plenty of non-combat skill-based RP. I attempted to negotiate with the kobolds in the first encounter, for example.
It's not Call of Cthulhu, but I wouldn't want it to be; it's Dungeons & Dragons. Samp's posts are apt, I think. I've got the core books, and I'm happy that I have them.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Has anyone been listening to the Penny Arcade/PVP D&D podcast? They've been playing through a long session, and a new one is posted every friday. They're up to number five right now, and so far they've been pretty interesting.
posted
I played a game with a group last week, and I was not very impressed. The cleric, ranger and thief in out group seemed pretty boring and under-powered. The warlock was a killing machine, performing all sorts of crazy maneuvers and raining death.
The mechanics were way too number-crunchy for my taste. Took forever to build characters, not very many options, and you seemed to be really pushed into your niche by the character design. You're pretty good if you use your various powers, otherwise you're kind of lame, so you use your powers exclusively, and are somewhat punished for trying to think outside the box.
I do like that 1st level characters are no longer one step away from death, but I'll probably just change the house rules on my 3rd edition games to take a few of the good things from 4th, and leave out the annoying bits (everything that they stole from miniature games and World of Warcraft) If I wanted to play a miniature war game or a MMORPG, I'd just play those.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote: You're pretty good if you use your various powers, otherwise you're kind of lame, so you use your powers exclusively, and are somewhat punished for trying to think outside the box.
I'm curious what you mean by this. What did you guys want to do that you felt 4e didn't support and 3.x did? (I generally find all the cool stuff we liked was stuff not in the rules that the GM had to adjudicate on the fly, so the rules system mattered not a bit.)
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Out of interest: why use the D&D system at all in that case, AR? There are lots of rules-light systems designed for "on the fly" adjudication.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Then we'd have to find them and do a bunch a research trying them out, and a bunch of casual gamers don't want all that. D20 was easy, and we wanted to kill some monsters and get their stuff.
But if we occasionally wanted to climb up the tapestries, kill the archers on the balcony, and swing back down on the chandelier, the GM just picked some skill checks and made it work. Now, if that's not the complaint, that example doesn't help any.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Well, one of our GMs bought 4.0 and is very excited. So, no more Eberron. And in a few weeks, I might have something to comment on the question. Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote: (I generally find all the cool stuff we liked was stuff not in the rules that the GM had to adjudicate on the fly, so the rules system mattered not a bit.)
Being as I am an avid student of Window methodology on adjudication in games like these, I think that it's a necessary skill for making combat work in a theatrical sense. You can't have rules for everything, so you internally enhance generic effects and have ways of making creative things possible even in combat.
The good part is that 4.0 combat is so .. well, diverse, mobile, and fun compared to the previous versions that it does half the work for you.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by AvidReader: I'm curious what you mean by this. What did you guys want to do that you felt 4e didn't support and 3.x did? (I generally find all the cool stuff we liked was stuff not in the rules that the GM had to adjudicate on the fly, so the rules system mattered not a bit.)
In 3.x, an attack was an attack, so if you're a melee character, if you wanted to do anything besides, "I roll to hit <i>again</i>" you had to come up with something creative.
In 4, the game gives you several things to do which are better than attacks, so there's no motivation ever to do a standard attack and be creative with it.
I admit that part of the problem may have been that we were unfamiliar with the system, so we were trying to figure out how to play, and our DM was unfamiliar, so he wasn't sure what we could and couldn't do.
Still, I think that the game works to push each character into a role, since they're significantly more effective in that role. Instead of each character having a Swiss army knife, each character has one huge hammer, and a tiny screwdriver.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Never played D&D 4, but I've enjoyed Star Wars Saga Edition a lot, and I believe the two are pretty similar.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Ok, I totally agree that folks have clearly defined roles now. But I played Living Greyhawk where we were already doing that anyway. We'd have to get a little creative when we were missing something important, and I'm sure 4e will be the same way. I can respect that it's a bigger shock to folks who only played home games.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
In fairness, Mighty Cow, only a few classes in 3e had swiss army knives (you know who I'm talking about). Most everybody else had either a big hammer or a tiny screwdriver. What 4th has done is just level the playing field.
But Full Healing After 6 Hours of Rest is still impossibly stupid, and does a lot to reinforce 4e's MMO vibe, sadly.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
This is a general D&D comment, but does anybody else think they should do away with all die-rolling in the character creation process? I'm okay with rolling dice during an adventure, since you can weigh the probabilities of succeeding at different tasks and choose your actions accordingly. But there's no justification (other than "life isn't fair") for why one player can roll strictly better ability scores than another player. The same can be said for rolling for hit points (even extra hit points your character gets upon gaining a level) and starting gold.
The D&D 3.0 and 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guides contained optional methods for creating characters' ability scores by "buying" them using a fixed number of points, but I think this method should have been the only one given in the Player's Handbooks. Fortunately, I think the 4.0 Player's Handbook does list point-buying first.
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
3.5 lowered outputs and gimped important durations (bull's strength et al) but they did not nerf them enough to keep them from being more powerful than any martial class.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:they did not nerf them enough to keep them from being more powerful than any martial class
I dispute this. Casters were only more powerful than martial classes when resting was not a factor. Poor DMs who permitted "hey, look, I'm out of spells; time to nap!" were more to blame for this than imbalanced classes. If you have one class that's largely balanced by a restricted but replenishing supply of some power, that class will seem more powerful when it can replenish that supply essentially at will.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
The issue wasn't that the party could sleep safely somewhere; the issue was that the DM permitted such a flexible timeline that they could take an eight-hour nap in the middle of the fortified lair of their enemy and a) not be too late for anything; b) not descend the rope to find themselves surrounded by sixty traps and the thirty deadliest monsters in the dungeon.
Saying "Okay, you can rest now, but I'm pretty sure the lich who runs the place is going to figure out you're there in the next eight hours" puts a stop to the whole power nap thing. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Last I checked a martial class could at level 1 have a good chance of killing any level 1 caster, it takes quite a bit of levels before I think a reasonalbly prepared caster to be able to fend off or kill a martial class. To me this is not unbalanced but realistic.
A good stock of wands, rings, amulets and ensocerled gems mid level should eliminate the need for constant "hit rest button" replenishment of spells ala Neverwinter Nights long enough until absolutely necessary.
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). The rules are very intuitive (IMHO) for experienced players, and the combat system is both dynamic and innovative.![[No No]](graemlins/nono.gif)
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And in a few weeks, I might have something to comment on the question. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
