After playing 4e, how does 4e compare to your expectations?
Poorly. They took the best parts of the Bo9S (encounter-based abilities that can recharge themselves), the worst parts about spells (Rituals have the longest casting times, and impractical durations to make up for it,
and cut into your WBL considerably), and threw out one of the best guidelines they had (the WBL chart was turned into the whole "Parcels" idea, which means a DM has to spend hours trying to figure out how much treasure a party needs to be able to take on encounters), then put it in a blender. Then they decided that classes shouldn't have a unique Recovery mechanic, and that damage should be the only option (I'm for that last one, but not when the encounters have HP in the hundreds by level 8).
And then there's multiclassing...
What do you prefer about 4e over 3.x? Where does 3.x do it better for you?
HP, that's about it. 3.5 has Home Brew support, a WBL chart, classes that are not carbon copies of a freaking cookie cutter, and better fluff for a lot of classes. Oh, and they will never print a 4E version of the MoI that will satisfy me, as the original system is completely incompatible with 4E.
4E's combats tend to be very bland use of the Spam button. 3.5 did have its novas, but in 4E you
have to mini-nova every encounter that doesn't consist of 95% minions or else you waste too many resources recuperating from the damages. You can't do a time-attack style situation without the players running bone-dry after 3 encounters, as the benefits for getting a milestone are wasted when you take an extended rest.
In 3.5, you can do a stamina or time-attack style dungeon and never have to worry about the players, provided they catch on within the 2nd battle. The players have the option of going nova and dying after 2 battles or spacing their abilities out and never needing to rest until after the 7th fight. If they are the right classes, you can end up going much longer than that. I've done games where the players cleared a 15 encounter dungeon without stopping to refresh spells (they took 2 minutes to heal up with wands about 1/3 of the way through, and the occasional 10-minute break to refresh a few maneuvers/ritual feats, but that's it). They had a hard time with that one, but felt it was worth-while.
I can't do that in 4E. Ever!Do you see yourself sticking with 3.x, 4e, or some other tabletop system?
Let me put it this way: I'm the last 3.5 DM in all of my entire city. Everyone within a 15 mile radius of my house (which is situated nicely near the middle of town) prefers 4E, as they think it's less broken (of course it is! They hit
everyone with a nerf bat, then gave the encounters the best abilities).
I'm the kind of person who plays FPSs for the sake of testing my ability to adapt to situations where I'm either outgunned or outclassed. In 3.5, I found I was quite capable of dealing with damn near anything my players could think up, and I was always able to put myself a step ahead of them with a little preparation. When I played instead of DMing, I ended up being the most flexible and reliable player in the group due to my optimization skills and solid tactical thinking. The enemies
could not stand up to me unless they were 6 or more levels above me, and I even held back at times to draw things out.
I've tried starting my own system (it didn't even get out of mapping, though I did get some good ideas from the experience). I'm working with a few others to try and design one, though I haven't got much done for that one either.
If I could start a 3.5 game IRL, I'd do my best to keep it floating. I'd have to design my own module to do that, which would take a month or so (not counting the effort needed to get maps for the encounters).
I don't see myself DMing another 4E game for a long time.