4.0 is made of Fail - intelligent proofs inside.

[AlienFromBeyond]

Now, 4.0 completely ceases to make any sense whatsoever the moment you stop thinking of it as a video game. For example, you are expected to take at least 5 minutes off between every battle to recover your 'encounter' powers, heal your little scratches with healing surges, and so forth. If you assume that enemies are remotely intelligent and therefore can hear the noise you made and are possibly continuing to make this falls apart - you get interrupted because the whole dungeon is on alert and you die because you're stuck scratching through the rest of the dungeon with your piddly little at wills. If however you assume that the mobs simply have not spawned yet, video game style this makes a twisted sort of sense, as the mob isn't there to be alerted (and yes, my use of MMO terminology is intentional).

What 3.x party took less than 5 minutes after battle? You had to heal up, rebuff (both of which could take a while if you're using cost efficient but long Wands of Lesser Vigor for instance), search the room, loot the bodies, argue over what to do next, and then actually move on. If you wanted to make an argument against 4e with the incredibly overdone and weak MMO argument you'd be better off pointing out the fact that you can't loot the awesome weapon that dude had, instead you get whatever magic item the DMG says you should in its parcel system or whatever.

You can even see hints of this in designer talk, where they say things like the monster exists for 5 rounds. Not is being fought for 5 rounds, exists for 5 rounds.

You realize the person who said that (David Noonan) was fired from WotC? He was a fucking idiot! I mean, we still get the Ecology articles in Dragon, which certainly goes against the philosophy Noonan had.

Then there's rituals, which are a better example. You're expected to stand there chanting for 10 minutes to open a door. This also permanently takes a big bite out of your WBL as WBL no longer accounts for consumables. Nevermind that since Hardness does not exist the Wizard could punch the door down in less time, with the same or less effort, and for free.

Except that the books say that the DM can say, "No, you can't punch that door down." If you wish to provide mechanical reasons why, there is such a thing as Resist All (gee, doesn't that seem similar to Hardness?).

I could keep going too. Minions (apparently there are entire subspecies that can be OHKOed by housecats, even if the creature is supposed to be pretty tough), and for that matter the other subsets of creature where you get three guys that look exactly the same, except one has 1 HP, one has 100 HP, and one has 250 HP.

I'm not sure what your complaint is here. "Minions" on 3.x were either so weak that they might as well not be there, or were strong enough that they were an encounter on their own, except hey look there's guys who are even stronger you need to worry about! And there is certainly no rule that makes Minions in 4e look like their Brute cousins or whatever, a good DM should be describing them in such a way as to make it obvious.

The entire skill challenge system. Ignoring how badly they've screwed even that much up, the entire system is what you'd expect to see in a video game that due to hardware limitations cannot handle real roleplaying so they have to improvise and jury rig it. Simply by including this, WotC is insulting every DM that would want to run it by telling them that their brain is incapable of handling actual roleplaying, so here's some jury rigged BS that does not actually work. It also insults any player that would want to play under such a DM for the same reason. Makes sense... unless and until you stop thinking of 4.0 as a video game, then it falls apart.

I'll admit the whole Skill Challenge thing has kind of fallen flat on its face. I do love how people complain about how 3.x had no rules on adjudicating non-combat encounters, and then complain about the fact that there are such rules in 4e. They may not have been done well, but at least they put something out there for people to use and experiment with.

Entire, essential subsystems are missing.

Like?

The moment you try to actually influence the world, it completely falls apart.

Without any examples or clarification, I have no fucking clue how this applies to 4e specifically.

But a level 1 Druid with Entangle has a better ability to influence combat than most, if not all of what 4.0 has to offer.

Yeah, and that was ridiculous. There's a reason people call 3.x Caster Edition. There is plenty of control in 4e if you look, it's just not over the top (hell, in some cases it gets worse than 3.x thanks to Orbizards).

You neglected the epic fail that is Paragon Multiclassing. 4 feats, for no benefit unless you are making a specific build? No where near worth it.

Paragon Multiclassing definitely got better if you're going into one of the Martial classes thanks to Martial Power making feats that let you get class features of the class you PMC'd into.

Padded Sumo effect is a problem in 4e I will say though. I'm at a level in my 4e campaign where we're going to start running into it pretty hard, but so far it's been fine (level 18).

[Sunic_Flames]

Dan: One more thing. Ability to influence the world is in large part about having the tools to do that. 4.0 does not give you those things. In fact, 4.0 pretends the world outside combat does not exist, so no influencing the world for you. Go back to getting quests from the static NPC.

Possibly the most apt use of the term "epic fail" is the failure to provide a barely functional epic game in 3.5e.  Or even a functional game in the high pre-epic levels.   Epic spellcasters have long discussions with their DM over the build, and then the game is over.  Either the character is unbeatable, or dead.  One side of any combat dies in the first round.  Now, D&D may not be all about combat, but that's what the bulk of the actual mechanics are for.  I've 'played' a few epic games.  They simply didn't work.  After a long time building, the actual game just couldn't run functionally - certainly not in any fun way.  I've watched closely (and with some curiosity) about half a dozen epic PbP games to see how to make it work.  They suffered exactly the same fate.  Everyone got very excited by the awesome - but no actual game resulted.

3.5e "Epic fail"ed.

I haven't played epic 4e yet, so no useful comments there - but even a cursory analysis of the system (by someone capable of the task) shows that the system scales fairly smoothly.  I've heard many loud, quite emotional arguments from people who don't want systems to scale so they can max out on AWESOME, but if that happens without an appropriate challenge level (neither too high nor too low) in the game, then the game itself just doesn't work.

Epic in 3.5 does fail, granted. However I'd take a system that works until high levels and then breaks over one that's just broken to begin with. Flip a coin, heads you scratch the mob, tails you waste your turn. Flip a coin for the mob, heads it negates your heads to make it more of a grind. Oh yeah, and did I mention that you're 15 points behind? Enhancement covers 6, stats cover a few... so you go from 50% to significantly less than that, and that's if optimized. You have to max optimize just to suck marginally less. Just like a 3.5 Fighter.

Eepop: I'm not deriding people, I'm making fun of a system. Don't be hypersensitive and take it all personal.

Banor: Trading your action for a mook's action is fail. If the mook is not better than you you're losing something. If they are... I'm not even going to get into the many flaws summoning things that are more badass than you.

Skill challenges, as they are require you to push things off the RNG entirely, as otherwise you have a low or nonexistent chance of success with no middle ground. If you do not have... what was it, a 70% chance of success or greater on any given check, your participation is an active liability as you will push things further towards 'fail' than 'pass'. And of course higher is better, especially given the way multiple rolls work probability wise, so it's still only one person doing everything. At least in 3.5 you could 'Aid Another' and even if you fail the main person will not be any worse off. In 4.0 if you aren't both the best and incredibly good at something there is absolutely nothing you can do to help. Oh and apparently 'Aid Another' breaks the game, because a bland little +2 is too much for it to handle.

Do the mobs have tags over their head telling you their level, name, and status? It would not surprise me if they did, except that they do not, so that goblin looks the same as every other goblin... unless of course you metagame, video game style.

At the end there you say that various aspects are flawed. This includes Padded Sumo (all combat), Skill Challenge (all non combat) and mobs using hahaha, you miss stuff (again, all combat).

Except that 'all combat' + 'all noncombat' = the entire fucking system is borked, and while you may choose not to admit it that is pretty much textbook Fail.

Alien: Buffs are generally long term, healing doesn't necessarily take long (depending on level of competence, you may have gibbed them before they can act). Loot the bodies happens in 4.0 too, except the mob corpse spawns a random item MMO style. Search the room happens in 4.0 too. Arguing over what to do? 4.0 too.

So in reality you are comparing a wait that is always 5 minutes + stuff, to a wait of duration = heal + same stuff. Healing likely takes less than 5 minutes.

I did not realize he was fired. In any case, without proof that he was fired and did not simply leave, and further proof that he was fired for this that is completely irrelevant.

"The books say that the DM can say 'No, you can't punch that door down'." = You need the Blue Key. No, you cannot chop the door down with your sword. No, you cannot blow up the door with a bomb, even though the bombs are clearly strong enough to destroy rock walls. No, you cannot use your fire rod to burn down the door. Just stay on the damn train tracks and find the fucking Blue Key. Thank you for making my point.

Isn't that kinda the whole point of them being minions? I don't even think the 4.0 MM comes with pictures, or at least not many of them, so all kobolds look the same and you, the DM are expected to compensate for designer FAIL by giving the mobs different color palettes. Fuck that, I'll make my own goddamn RPG.

4.0 Control is single target, and notice that actually being able to reliably affect mobs breaks the whole fucking game? I keep saying this, but I really want to drill home just how fucking fragile 4.0 is. The moment you do the slightest thing unexpected, or creative, or just plain USEFUL you sodomize the entire system. Now, last I checked, GOOD gaming systems are supposed to be adaptable. 4.0 is play our way or fuck you... And if you don't play our way, we'll nerf you into senselessness until you do. just like an MMO.

If I ignored a point it was because it was either already addressed, or an irrelevant straw man.

[Caelic]

How many of those 'subsystems' (which aren't, but rather, are character types) are actually viable in previous editions with only the first 4 or so splats? Not sort of playable, but truly viable?

Err...everything except maybe the gish, and that's only in third edition.  Illusionists, shapeshifters, summoners, and necromancers work just fine with nothing but core, and that's across the board in every edition.

If 4e is so much of an improvement over, say, first edition, why does it need expansions to handle situations first edition could handle with just the core rules?

[Caelic]

"Influencing the game world" is an abstract term at best.
I'd like to what you mean by it, and why you say that 4E characters are incapable of it.

Essentially, Dan, I think he's making the point that anything outside of combat is basically beyond the purview of 4e.

Now, I know that the standard response is, "That's what imagination is for!"  My standard response to the standard response: "If the system does nothing that I can't already do with imagination, then the system has no value in that area."

4e does not support the majority of play-types I find enjoyable and compelling.  At best, it doesn't actively hinder them...and that's "at best."  In some ways, it DOES actively hinder them, in that it makes certain assumptions in the rules that limit the types of stories that can be told.

And, yes, I can change those rules.  If I have to rewrite the system to make it work for me, though, I might as well stick with the systems I've ALREADY rewritten and tweaked to my tastes.

4e, from what I can see, offers me nothing that I can't get from existing systems, and fails to offer me some things that those systems do offer.

That's not a powerful incentive to switch.

[Banor]

Epic in 3.5 does fail, granted. However I'd take a system that works until high levels and then breaks over one that's just broken to begin with. Flip a coin, heads you scratch the mob, tails you waste your turn. Flip a coin for the mob, heads it negates your heads to make it more of a grind. Oh yeah, and did I mention that you're 15 points behind? Enhancement covers 6, stats cover a few... so you go from 50% to significantly less than that, and that's if optimized. You have to max optimize just to suck marginally less. Just like a 3.5 Fighter.

And the fact that any spellcaster with L9 spells can break ANY encounter isn't game design fail ? And it's not important I guess too ?You start to sound like someone who is angry that he loss his favorite toys (like a MMO kid btw)

Eepop: I'm not deriding people, I'm making fun of a system. Don't be hypersensitive and take it all personal.

Don't need to explicitly say that you are making fun of someone to be actually be doing so. Internet being what is it, your tone isn't helping.

Banor: Trading your action for a mook's action is fail. If the mook is not better than you you're losing something. If they are... I'm not even going to get into the many flaws summoning things that are more badass than you.

What's the problem with summon that are more powerful than you ?

Skill challenges, as they are require you to push things off the RNG entirely, as otherwise you have a low or nonexistent chance of success with no middle ground. If you do not have... what was it, a 70% chance of success or greater on any given check, your participation is an active liability as you will push things further towards 'fail' than 'pass'. And of course higher is better, especially given the way multiple rolls work probability wise, so it's still only one person doing everything. At least in 3.5 you could 'Aid Another' and even if you fail the main person will not be any worse off. In 4.0 if you aren't both the best and incredibly good at something there is absolutely nothing you can do to help. Oh and apparently 'Aid Another' breaks the game, because a bland little +2 is too much for it to handle.

As I said the Skill Challenge mechanic is slightly flawed, it should have been like the player made Obsidian system. Yes it's true. But the system is not impossible to deal with. Skill Challenges rules explicitly say that the DM can (and probably should) award a small bonus (like that lousy +2 that make a hard skill a doable one) on good Roleplaying and description. Why this DM fiat ? Because Skill Challenges were designed to involve the team into the game. Mechanic ain't very good, but a dedicated group will have a lot of fun doing this.

Do the mobs have tags over their head telling you their level, name, and status? It would not surprise me if they did, except that they do not, so that goblin looks the same as every other goblin... unless of course you metagame, video game style.

I find 3.X way of describing monsters much more restrictive to imagination to anything and never used it.

As for the "level tag" problem, think of this : A Goblin Hexer (probably the most annoying controller at low heroic level) got enough power to lead a small squad of gobs/orcs, his shaman-ish aspect make it a good leader to threaten a village or something. It's all about heroic level, where player save NPC granma or Timmy that fell in the well.

A Goblin Hexer+(easily homebrewed mob, because the 4E system is simple and effective to create monster) might be a paragon monster based on the Goblin Hexer. He might be the Goblin Hexer that fled from PC while they were destroying his army. He now dabble in Necromancy and attemps to take over the whole region with his squad of former allies. He still have few abilities that PC will recongnize (Probably the Vexing Cloud;signature move of the Hexer) but his threat level will be much higher making him paragon monster (probably Elite too)

See, I just created a unique monster from another monster. If you can't do that and only use standard description (that are non-existant anyway) for monster you throw at your PCs, you fail at DM and that it. Not 4E, YOU (not directly pointed at Sunic, more like a non-descript you)

At the end there you say that various aspects are flawed. This includes Padded Sumo (all combat), Skill Challenge (all non combat) and mobs using hahaha, you miss stuff (again, all combat).

Except that 'all combat' + 'all noncombat' = the entire fucking system is borked, and while you may choose not to admit it that is pretty much textbook Fail.

Padded Sumo is fixing really fast with the splatbook, it seem to me that the whole Martial Power system  was ready ages ago and that monster from MM1 were already considering the new stats to be included. Seriously, it will probably do like in 3.X where every single splatbook bring more power creep.

Skill Challenge Mechanic is flawed, but not dead as I said. I had great time running/playing skill challenges when they are well designed.

Alien: Buffs are generally long term, healing doesn't necessarily take long (depending on level of competence, you may have gibbed them before they can act). Loot the bodies happens in 4.0 too, except the mob corpse spawns a random item MMO style. Search the room happens in 4.0 too. Arguing over what to do? 4.0 too.

Short rest allow the team to search the room. So the 5min break is not a real, let's sit down and wait 5 min. If you follow the rules for 3.X, searching a room could take MUCH longer that a simple 5min. Now for the looting system, most monster have no magic item of their own, the orc is powerful by his own, not because the DM had to give him a powerful magic item so he would be a threat to PC (that will kill him anyway and will only make 'em harder to kill etc...). Most treasure in 4E are exactly that Treasure. Monster using magic item are explained in DMG if you really want to equip your monster with pimp magic items.

So in reality you are comparing a wait that is always 5 minutes + stuff, to a wait of duration = heal + same stuff. Healing likely takes less than 5 minutes.

As I said, Short Rest INCLUDE searching room/secret passages AND identifying items. Yes it's much shorter.

4.0 Control is single target, and notice that actually being able to reliably affect mobs breaks the whole fucking game? I keep saying this, but I really want to drill home just how fucking fragile 4.0 is. The moment you do the slightest thing unexpected, or creative, or just plain USEFUL you sodomize the entire system. Now, last I checked, GOOD gaming systems are supposed to be adaptable. 4.0 is play our way or fuck you... And if you don't play our way, we'll nerf you into senselessness until you do. just like an MMO.

No it's just plain wrong, control in 4E can be massive scale. What about dropping a Zone that damage and slows the target, then waiting them to get out to push them again right into ? Moving target exactly where you want them to go isn't control ? Rogue and Fighters can do single target control (omg they can do other thing than just do damage!!!one) when builded properly, Wizard (and soon to be Invoker if we can trust the 3 level previews) are awesome controllers. Of course there is no more " I cast Sculpted Glitterdust on the enemy group ; Save almost impossible or fight end" and this is a GOOD thing. Caster and Dragons sucked for people that don't like magic user or like pummeling thing with sharp sticks.

[Banor]

"Influencing the game world" is an abstract term at best.
I'd like to what you mean by it, and why you say that 4E characters are incapable of it.

Essentially, Dan, I think he's making the point that anything outside of combat is basically beyond the purview of 4e.

Now, I know that the standard response is, "That's what imagination is for!"  My standard response to the standard response: "If the system does nothing that I can't already do with imagination, then the system has no value in that area."

4e does not support the majority of play-types I find enjoyable and compelling.  At best, it doesn't actively hinder them...and that's "at best."  In some ways, it DOES actively hinder them, in that it makes certain assumptions in the rules that limit the types of stories that can be told.

And, yes, I can change those rules.  If I have to rewrite the system to make it work for me, though, I might as well stick with the systems I've ALREADY rewritten and tweaked to my tastes.

4e, from what I can see, offers me nothing that I can't get from existing systems, and fails to offer me some things that those systems do offer.

That's not a powerful incentive to switch.

I agree that there is few ruleset to support Out of combat. 3.X had a retarded system Out of Combat. I mean WTF with a system that makes crafter weaker ? WTF with taking two years crafting a Full Plate ? WTF with buying a ladder and selling it as 2 10 foot pole to get some money ? Seriously it was retarded.
You might already have tweaked to your tastes 3.X and that's great, I understand that you don't want to start over. But let's face it DnD was never the system to simulate Fantasy Life. It was, despite his effort, a mini game of tactical combat. The rest is just fluff. I like fluff, I add it to my games all the time. Lack of ruleset is annoying but i'd rather have none than 3.X's "I Jump very high in the sky and the crowd is now willing to die for me".

Anyway, I don't care you don't play, or even like 4E. I do like it and have a blast playing it, it's not "made of fail" because someone don't like it.

[Sunic_Flames]

9th level spells don't necessarily auto win encounters because by the time you get them about the only opponents you face are high end dragons, outsiders, and casters with 9th level spells of their own. Not to mention many of them are actually not that great... [Death] tag anyone? Also, I haven't lost anything because I'm not touching that Fail system. I refuse to downgrade, and it took very little time for me to realize exactly what that is - a downgrade. Hell, I had more than enough information to make up my mind and confirm it before 4.0 was even officially released.

The problems with summons being stronger than you are as follows:

1: If it's better than you, why aren't you its minion?
2: Why would you want to play something outclassed by your minions? Ya know, just in case you didn't feel like a gimp enough in 4.0, even your own mobs have better grind stats than you.

Skill Challenges are for hyper focused experts only. This takes everything wrong with 3.5 skills and magnifies it. Now reread that line until you get the point.

Your way of 'describing monsters' means you are paying to create your own stuff... which you can do for free. The simple fact you have to do that is textbook Fail. Also note that you had to make a completely different mob, along with arbitrarium stats out of your ass, instead of just adding class levels.

If items don't just spawn from the mob corpse... right, they're guarding the treasure chest, which is sealed until you kill the mob, because we can't have you bypassing our content! (play our way or fuck off, bitch)

Anyways, why are you searching the room when the dungeon isn't cleared out? You can always come back after all.

I'm ignoring the video game crap that isn't worth commenting on specifically like little 'push/pulls' being eaten up as valid control, and not the utter joke they are.

[Banor]

9th level spells don't necessarily auto win encounters because by the time you get them about the only opponents you face are high end dragons, outsiders, and casters with 9th level spells of their own. Not to mention many of them are actually not that great... [Death] tag anyone? Also, I haven't lost anything because I'm not touching that Fail system. I refuse to downgrade, and it took very little time for me to realize exactly what that is - a downgrade. Hell, I had more than enough information to make up my mind and confirm it before 4.0 was even officially released.

If your 9th level spells don't win encounter, you need to take better spells...

The problems with summons being stronger than you are as follows:

1: If it's better than you, why aren't you its minion?
2: Why would you want to play something outclassed by your minions? Ya know, just in case you didn't feel like a gimp enough in 4.0, even your own mobs have better grind stats than you.

Summoning big crazy thing ALWAYS attracted people. Faustian pacts and stuffs like that are cool, they are also powerful. I not only find the idea really, cool but wish there was more options like this. Do I feel gimp when the dude I summoned start rampaging enemies, nope. It's like playing a God wizard in 3.X. You (personally) might not be the one who's reaping everybody but you are a top value for your group. You might not like it, but face it a lot of people does.

Skill Challenges are for hyper focused experts only. This takes everything wrong with 3.5 skills and magnifies it. Now reread that line until you get the point.

How many Skill Challenge you ever done ? Because I'm pretty sure I saw a lot of skill challenge that were hard (for people who know a L4 Cleric in LFR High level play 4-7 running a skill challenge is no where near expert in ANYTHING) yet people were important and did their part. In 4E, EVERYONE can be expert in a few skills (normally 1-2 sometimes more) and be decent (>50% of succes) at 2 others. If you are a dead meat for your group, YOU failed not the game.

Your way of 'describing monsters' means you are paying to create your own stuff... which you can do for free. The simple fact you have to do that is textbook Fail. Also note that you had to make a completely different mob, along with arbitrarium stats out of your ass, instead of just adding class levels.

Actually, the DMG gives pretty nice guidelines on making customs monsters. It's fun and quite easy, add a lot to the DM job. Much more interesting than add class level to your monster tbh. EDIT : And I don't see how creating custom monster is different from adding them 6-7 level of class to achive a build so that they can be a real threat to your group. 3.X had a different system to making custom monsters but you had to do it or the simple MM monsters wont be enough...

If items don't just spawn from the mob corpse... right, they're guarding the treasure chest, which is sealed until you kill the mob, because we can't have you bypassing our content! (play our way or fuck off, bitch)

In a few LFR (RPGA living campaign) game I ran (and some that I played), I had skill challenge in the middle of the fight. Don't want to fight ? You can just burn the skill challenge and run out if you want.

Anyways, why are you searching the room when the dungeon isn't cleared out? You can always come back after all.

Wow, if that isn't MMO mentality... You can never be sure what lies ahead, you can not be sure if the dungeon will not collapse, you can not be sure that you aren't leaving some valuable clues in the room that you will need to unlock the "Final Door" etc... In fact, I NEVER saw a group not searching the room they are in after clearing it.

I'm ignoring the video game crap that isn't worth commenting on specifically like little 'push/pulls' being eaten up as valid control, and not the utter joke they are.

I can see that you never played with a good Wizard in your group (or at all). I thought the same thing before I run a game with my bro playing his Orbizard. Wow, push/pull are not only really powerful when you knock 'em back into your zones but you can abuse all forms of terrain in the fight, pushing them back in area they won't be able to reach you next round or into a trap. You need to see it in action to realize how good it is.

EDIT : Added stuff about monsters creation

[Caelic]

You might already have tweaked to your tastes 3.X and that's great, I understand that you don't want to start over. But let's face it DnD was never the system to simulate Fantasy Life. It was, despite his effort, a mini game of tactical combat. The rest is just fluff. 

...the problem is that that's just not true.  It certainly doesn't need to be true, and it hasn't always been true.

D&D can be about politics.  It can be about empire-building.  It can be about exploration and intrigue.

What's more, it can actively support those modes of play, and it can do so without saying "Wait for fifty-three gazillion expansions."

Consider the D&D Rules Cyclopaedia.  In one book, you got rules for playing characters from apprenticeship through actual godhood; you got rules for what amounted to prestige classes; you got rules for building and running kingdoms, and rules for mass warfare.  You got a monster manual and a campaign setting.

All of this was in one book.  So don't say they can't do it; it's been done.

They won't do it.  Why?  Because giving us a well-designed system with everything you need to play in one book isn't as profitable as spreading it out over a dozen.

I understand their need to make money.  However, they have failed to convince me that I need to give them money.

If they want me back as a customer, then their new edition needs to do at least as much as editions that were out two decades ago.

[Sunic_Flames]

Don't win =/= don't auto win, and this is because they have their own uber tools. Someone didn't read.

The mobs are inconsistent with their own guidelines.

I'm ignoring the rest of your post because you started pulling a bunch of random three letter acronyms out of your ass... wait for it...

MMO STYLE!

Also, Caelic = win.

[Banor]

ok let's list acronyms I used :

L4 Cleric : Pretty sure we all used this in 3.X
LFR : Living Forgotten Realm, pretty much the same concept at LG (Living Greyhawk) who was *GASP* 3.5
RPGA : Ok you seriously wanted my to write Role-Playing Game Association when even RPGA list itself as RPGA ?
DMG : OH MY GOD !
MMO : Lawl you used it 1st.

that it's.

Did you just fail or are you just conceeding that you have actually no "intelligent proofs" that the game is made of fail ?

Caelic : I agree that it would have been great, but you have to agree that 3.X had no such thing either and that the WotC kinda let's this total immersion feel aside a few years ago. These are now considered as "alternate ruleset" pretty much like Miniature Handbook and Heroes of Battle for 3.X.

EDIT : Sorry I've also used MM for Monster Manual and tbh for To be honest, again this has to be the first time ever somebody used that acronym and clearly a Fourth Edition (Not writing it in acronym) thing !!!

[AlienFromBeyond]

Dan: One more thing. Ability to influence the world is in large part about having the tools to do that. 4.0 does not give you those things. In fact, 4.0 pretends the world outside combat does not exist, so no influencing the world for you. Go back to getting quests from the static NPC.

Yup, Manual of the Planes is just a book of extraplanar encounters for you to fight, nothing more. I fail to see how you can't kill a king in 4e and have repercussions like in 3.x.

Epic in 3.5 does fail, granted. However I'd take a system that works until high levels and then breaks over one that's just broken to begin with. Flip a coin, heads you scratch the mob, tails you waste your turn. Flip a coin for the mob, heads it negates your heads to make it more of a grind. Oh yeah, and did I mention that you're 15 points behind? Enhancement covers 6, stats cover a few... so you go from 50% to significantly less than that, and that's if optimized. You have to max optimize just to suck marginally less. Just like a 3.5 Fighter.

High end Epic is a problem I'll admit, but compared to how broken Epic was in 3.x? You'll just need to make sure to work together more.

Skill challenges, as they are require you to push things off the RNG entirely, as otherwise you have a low or nonexistent chance of success with no middle ground. If you do not have... what was it, a 70% chance of success or greater on any given check, your participation is an active liability as you will push things further towards 'fail' than 'pass'.

Are we talking about the Skill Challenge rules in the default PHB, or the ones after Errata? Either way, us people arguing for 4e have admitted they're a bit of a problem.

At least in 3.5 you could 'Aid Another' and even if you fail the main person will not be any worse off. In 4.0 if you aren't both the best and incredibly good at something there is absolutely nothing you can do to help. Oh and apparently 'Aid Another' breaks the game, because a bland little +2 is too much for it to handle.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, that you can't Aid Another in 4e? Because you most certainly can, I'm staring at it on page 247 PHB.

So in reality you are comparing a wait that is always 5 minutes + stuff, to a wait of duration = heal + same stuff. Healing likely takes less than 5 minutes.

As already mentioned, you can do that searching during that Short Rest.

I did not realize he was fired. In any case, without proof that he was fired and did not simply leave, and further proof that he was fired for this that is completely irrelevant.

Looking at Wikipedia takes too much time? He was "let go" if you want to be technical. It was never said for what reason (that is sort of a personal matter) but WotC definitely didn't want him anymore.

"The books say that the DM can say 'No, you can't punch that door down'." = You need the Blue Key.

Woah woah woah, excuse me? How do you draw that conclusion? You can still use Magic to take it down, or use the Resist All suggestion I gave, or not be a terrible DM and railroad the party from being able to bust down the door when they have things that obviously can like bombs.

Isn't that kinda the whole point of them being minions? I don't even think the 4.0 MM comes with pictures, or at least not many of them, so all kobolds look the same and you, the DM are expected to compensate for designer FAIL by giving the mobs different color palettes. Fuck that, I'll make my own goddamn RPG.

"Baww I want to use my own fluff for the monsters!" people said for 3.x. "Baww give me fluff to read for the monsters!" people say about 4e. WotC can only do one of those at a time, they're kind of mutually exclusive. I'm not saying you did, but many people did ask for it to be this way, and they can only serve one of those groups at a time, whichever one is being more vocal.

4.0 Control is single target

No it's not. I count 24 AoE control powers for the Wizard alone, and that's not counting Wall spells, single target control, or anything that does damage in an AoE (easiest way to kill Minions is to sic the Wizard on them).

and notice that actually being able to reliably affect mobs breaks the whole fucking game?

Being able to reliably control != not being able to break free ever, which is what I was talking about with Orbizards. A plain one with just the Core books is strong and has good control (it can put someone in a lock for more than the average of 2 rounds the save mechanic gives, I'd call that reliable), but is not broken. But when you can take a solo monster and say that it is stunned for the entire fight, that's broken. It might be familiar to something that happened in the transition from 3.0 to 3.5, the whole Hold Person/Monster thing. Admittedly WotC hasn't done anything about massively stacking save penalties yet, but I assume they're holding it for a giant errata release. It is a problem right now though.

The moment you do the slightest thing unexpected, or creative, or just plain USEFUL you sodomize the entire system.

Like what? I take it you are referring to doing something within the game system, rather than in the game world (like the killing the king example I had, I take your comment more to mean like swing on a chandelier kind of stuff). I mean, if that was true you wouldn't be able to roleplay/do anything, and my 4e campaign where we fly around on a planehopping airship certainly is testimony against that.

Essentially, Dan, I think he's making the point that anything outside of combat is basically beyond the purview of 4e.

Oh yeah, because 3.x did out of combat stuff so well . The only difference between them is the difference in how skills improve in 4e compared to 3.x, but the basic mechanic of rolling your skill is still the same. Hell, 4e even has powers that give bonuses to skills so you can actually do more than just roll a d20.

I'm ignoring the video game crap that isn't worth commenting on specifically like little 'push/pulls' being eaten up as valid control, and not the utter joke they are.

I guess Bull Rushing isn't valid control then. How is arranging monsters in a formation that's bad for them not control?

[Sunic_Flames]

I don't see anything in there that is not one or more of the following:

1: Straw man, and thus irrelevant.

2: Baiting, and thus disregarded.

3: Already covered.

Of course all those lines invoke a tl;dr, so you're welcome to reformat that into a more succinct manner.

[Banor]

In other words, you failed at proving you had intelligent arguments and decided to end the discussion by calling everything Straw Man or baiting.

PS :

I'm ignoring the rest of your post because you started pulling a bunch of random three letter acronyms out of your ass... wait for it...

MMO STYLE!

Was not baiting ?

[AlienFromBeyond]

I don't see anything in there that is not one or more of the following:

1: Straw man, and thus irrelevant.

2: Baiting, and thus disregarded.

3: Already covered.

Of course all those lines invoke a tl;dr, so you're welcome to reformat that into a more succinct manner.

I took the time to write out a lengthy reply to a lengthy post, and you complain about it? You didn't even bother to respond to anything, at least give me some respect if this is truly an intelligent debate, and not just you ranting about 4e. If I made a mistake, point it out! I'm not deliberately trying to goad you into flaming, I am honestly just addressing issues you have pointed out

[Sunic_Flames]

I don't see anything in there that is not one or more of the following:

1: Straw man, and thus irrelevant.

2: Baiting, and thus disregarded.

3: Already covered.

Of course all those lines invoke a tl;dr, so you're welcome to reformat that into a more succinct manner.

I took the time to write out a lengthy reply to a lengthy post, and you complain about it? You didn't even bother to respond to anything, at least give me some respect if this is truly an intelligent debate, and not just you ranting about 4e. If I made a mistake, point it out! I'm not deliberately trying to goad you into flaming, I am honestly just addressing issues you have pointed out

The stuff that isn't irrelevant or baiting has already been addressed. If something does not fit into one of those categories copy paste it to bring it up again. Not hard to understand.

Though to be fair I did miss one line the first time.

You can do stuff while resting in 3.5 too. After all, even if you're going the Lesser Vigor route (which is about the only way it's taking that long) that means one person going around and poking people at the rate of 1/round, then waiting until 11 rounds is up and repeating. There is nothing stopping the x - 1 characters from acting in this time, or even the heal stick guy doing so 11 - x rounds. So no, that isn't a counter either.

[AlienFromBeyond]

Fine, I can see this is going nowhere fast. Remind me to not bother with 4e on these boards.

[yellerSumner]

What's more, it can actively support those modes of play, and it can do so without saying "Wait for fifty-three gazillion expansions."

Consider the D&D Rules Cyclopaedia.  In one book, you got rules for playing characters from apprenticeship through actual godhood; you got rules for what amounted to prestige classes; you got rules for building and running kingdoms, and rules for mass warfare.  You got a monster manual and a campaign setting.

All of this was in one book.  So don't say they can't do it; it's been done.

I'm going off of Wikipedia here, so please do correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Rules Cyclopedia a compilation of previous publications and not the beginning of an edition?

Do the mobs have tags over their head telling you their level, name, and status? It would not surprise me if they did, except that they do not, so that goblin looks the same as every other goblin... unless of course you metagame, video game style.

...

Isn't that kinda the whole point of them being minions? I don't even think the 4.0 MM comes with pictures, or at least not many of them, so all kobolds look the same and you, the DM are expected to compensate for designer FAIL by giving the mobs different color palettes. Fuck that, I'll make my own goddamn RPG.

So, I did a fun little comparison. 3.5 illustrations compared to 4e illustrations. In this context I have loosely used the word "monster" to refer to different statblocks and the "paint jobs" given each.

Goblinoids - (Bugbears/Goblins/Hobgoblins)
[spoiler]3.5 (entries compiled)
3 monsters (1/1/1)
3 illustrations (1/1/1)
3 pictured monsters (1/1/1)

4e
16 monsters (2/7/7)
3 illustrations (1/1/1)
9 pictured monsters (2/3/4)[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
Not labeled, but easily identifiable as a Bugbear Strangler and Bugbear Warrior if you glance at the stat blocks. Lurker and Brute.

Controller, Brute, and Skirmisher. Minion not pictured.

Controller, Soldier, Soldier, Artillery. Minion not pictured.[/spoiler]

Kobold
[spoiler]3.5
1 monster
1 illustration
1 pictured monster

4e
6 monsters
2 illustrations
3 pictured monsters[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
Skirmisher, Soldier, Artillery.

Not labeled. From looking at the "Equipment" on the different Kobolds, I'd say more Kobold Skirmishers.[/spoiler]

Orc
[spoiler]3.5
1 monster
1 illustration
1 pictured monster

4e
7 monsters
1 illustration
4 pictured monsters[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
Skirmisher, Elite Brute, Controller, and Minion.[/spoiler]

Skeleton
[spoiler]3.5
9 monsters
1 illustration
1 pictured monster

4e
5 monsters
2 illustrations
5 pictured monsters[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
Soldier, Brute, Artillery, and Minion.

Brute.[/spoiler]

Now, I don't know how all Kobolds look the same, racism aside , when they're equipped differently.
Minion: hide armor, light shield, 3 javelins
Skirmisher: hide armor, spear
Slinger: leather armor, dagger, sling with 20 bullets and 3 rounds of special shot
Dragonshield: scale armor, heavy shield, short sword
Wyrmpriest: hide armor, spear, bone mask
Slyblade: leather armor, 2 short swords

Does that not qualify as "different color palettes"?

[anomalousman]

Fine, I can see this is going nowhere fast. Remind me to not bother with 4e on these boards.

A lot of the 4e discussion is quite sensible, all you have to do is avoid a few keywords in the "posted by" field, much like everywhere else. 

[EjoThims]

"Baww I want to use my own fluff for the monsters!" people said for 3.x. "Baww give me fluff to read for the monsters!" people say about 4e. WotC can only do one of those at a time, they're kind of mutually exclusive.

They are not. At all.

Just because some idiots thought that our own fluff couldn't override what was already there doesn't mean WotC gets a free pass on shoving more of the creative work for the product I pay them for onto me.

I mean, if that was true you wouldn't be able to roleplay/do anything, and my 4e campaign where we fly around on a planehopping airship certainly is testimony against that.

Once more, this is possible, but only by passing the buck, to the DM instead of having it provided.

No, that doesn't mean the DM should in any way give up creative control, but when he is forced to always take full creative control inside the system he dished out cash for, well, the system has indeed failed.

It comes down to this:

When I have to do something I could do without paying money to enjoy something I paid money for, it's not worth my money.

If I have to mash the potatoes from scratch to use the box of quick cook mashed potatoes I bought at the store... I'm not going to waste my money buying that damned box.