House rules and the DM should, IMO, be the final arbritor of whatever craziness you are attempting. For me, when i first began playing RPGs ( pen and paer rpgs at that) back in the early 90’s, all we wanted to do is kill stuff (who doesn’t). But as i got older, i realized that, if i were reading this book, we would be super crappy 1 dimensional characters, who only knew how to swing a sword, shoot a gun, or cast magic missile.

i guess, what i’m getting at is- a combat based DND game isnt the only way to go. Even if rules arent available, there is a structure of rules that can be adapted. Your DM (any DMs here?) should be able to let you try to seduce the daughter of the Lord of Greyhawk, let you launch a campaign to become the Warden of a small town or area ( and if necessary kill all the other competitors) or lock into a game of wits with a Greater Infernal (good luck with that one).

Just because combat is more structured and more focused in 4th Ed, doesnt mean combat is the only way to play.

Interestingly, the people who really, really seem to love 4E the most have all been my old grognard friends who prefer the 1st edition of the game and are still sore about the 2nd edition. The only group I know that has barred the game from the table is a regular 3.5 group I play in; no one has yet given 4E a shot to compare and contrast, unfortunately; I think the game sells itself very well in actual play.

It seems to me that 4e is built to satiate the min/maxers and the power-gamers and leaves much to be desired by those of us who enjoy the utilitarian roles. Clerics are no longer the best at healing, nor does any party need a Cleric at all for any reason.

In 3.5, nothing could do crowd control better than an Enchanter or an Ilusionist – neither of which are available (nor effective) in 4e. Ongoing effects that could be used to slow down the bigger bads while you take out the annoyances are gone in 4e – No, I do not consider the current version of ongoing effects useful considering everythign has better than a 50% chance of ending any ongoing effect every round.

With all classes having three major stat requirements, it is almost impossible to have a good character build without playing a race that has the specific stat bumps available for that class. There are a few exceptions, but just try making an effective elven wizard. I don’t see races being able to effectively branch out into different classes very well. If you aren’t playing a race with a class that it’s intended for, you will be in for a very rough time.

The feats are almost all weaker. The feat you have to blow to get any SEMBLANCE of a domain ability isn’t worth using in any situation, IMO (aside MAYBE from Bahamut’s armor).

That being said, do I think all changes in 4e are bad – NO. I like what they did with Paladins. Paladins are more playable than they were in 3.5. They changed the rogue entirely and if they had left the bard as a social character with sneaky abilities, I could appreciate more of what the rogue has become. The fighter has some grand improvements. The Ranger can now “Twin Shot” as a standard action instead of a full-round action like in 3.5. Unfortunately, most of the other abilities for a Ranger are focused around two-weapon fighting WHICH ONLY A RANGER CAN DO NOW. All spellcasters have been dulled down and are less effective – I look at the mid-levels as evidence… a 16th level wizard is considered to be doing pretty good with a spell that does 6d6, whereas the Ranger of the same level gets to keep hitting until he misses.

It seems to me that WotC is trying to force cookie-cutter builds and trying to dumb down the use or need for any type of spellcasting.

Will I play 4e… I prefer 3.5, but the best place for me to play in is the RPGA. So if the RPGA forces a shift to 4e. then I will be forced to fall into that shift myself. I just wish 4e wasn’t all about the battle mat.

“If you want to give examples of how D&D rules prior to 4E did not center around combat, I’d be very interested to see them.”

Familiars could spy, bards could play the lute, enchanters could charm outside of combat, you could take knowledge skills in masonry, carpentry, or art, you had followers, hirelings, scrying and illusions were usable in purely political roleplaying plots, etc.

There were lots of things you could do in previous versions of D&D that had more to do with political power-brokering; creating, manning, and expanding freeholds, etc.

Eric wrote:
“Don’t expect the Wizards to be the only one with abilities any more though, if you do you will be sorely disappointed.”

I don’t and I didn’t. I did expected Wizards to be interesting. Instead, Wizards look boring as sin with choices primarily in the range of “what energy type of damage do I want to use?” and to “how many people will I blast?”. I expected rogues to have more special abilities related to thieving and fewer related to how to slash somebody in toe-to-toe combat.

I expected Clerics to have a lot of distinctions and flavor (like 2nd edition) instead of 1 feat per god to distinguish what they do. 3rd edition had less flavorful priest than 2nd edition. 4E has less flavorful and varied priests than either of the last 2 editions of D&D.

Eric wrote:
“What it means is you no longer have a plot destroying toolbox of spells”

Like summoning an orc? Like have a skeletal servant following you around? Like creating imaginative illusions to distract the enemy?

These types of things didn’t seem plot destroying to me, but added a lot of flavor. Some of the divinatory magics could be in a mystery campaign. But a lot of the other stuff that was cut wasn’t really that powerful.

I haven’t played a game yet, I am running my first adventure / first game of 4th edition next weekend, but I actually took the time to cover to cover both the PHB and the DMG and both were very interesting.

Don’t expect the Wizards to be the only one with abilities any more though, if you do you will be sorely disappointed.

That’s gotta be the funniest thing I’ve heard about 4E to date

I think 4E is going to be fun, but I think it’s going to be fun the way Heroclix is fun, not the way Call of Cthulhu is fun. I think it’ll be very good with D&D Insider’s tools IF those tools are any good.

Mike wrote:
“And, Lee? Have a look at the DMG when you get a chance.”

I’ll flip through it at the game store. Even if there’s 100 pages on role-playing, with what’s in the PHB, it’s hard to design characters that do anything mechanically other than blast enemies and mow them down. I think the game is gonna be a relatively fun passtime, but I’m annoyed enough with what I see in the PHB that I’m unlikely to invest in the other books unless the game play takes me by surprise.

Jack wrote:
“When have non-combat PCs ever been a good idea in this game?”

In 3.5 I played a 10th level diviner for a while. With sufficient time I could know almost anything that people weren’t magically shielding from me. Remarkably good in a political game. Very useful in a dungeon. ‘Oh my gosh, we’ll have to search the entire dungeon to find X.’ 2 minutes later the diviner had found it. The monsters were waiting in ambush. With a diviner in your company, you could ambush them instead. Diviners had combat utility. If you chose conjuration as a forbidden school of magic, for example, you could still sling necromantic, transmutation, enchantment, and evocation magic to great effect.

In a political game, enchanters were incredible. While the 20th level fighter may have a nearly impenetrable castle, if your 10th level enchanter dominates the minds of 2-3 mooks who guard the gates you can waltz right in.

Jack wrote:
“Funny, older editions didn’t have any rules for the roleplaying aspects… The rules are there to regulate combat and make resolving it clear and fair, same as always. ”

Huh? Rules in RPGs are not just there for combats. Heck, most Cthulhu-oriented games wouldn’t last 2 sessions if the players were actively seeking combat with the big bad things that go bump in the night.

Rules are there regarding game effects that shape the game world. Sure, some of those game shaping effects will be damaging combat stuff. But a lot of them can involve rules for game effects which are more subtle, are related to developing followers, strongholds, political intrigues, economics, etc.

Previous versions of the game had lots of spells, effects, etc. that were useful in political campaigns.

Mike wrote:
“Lee: Enchanters and Diviners do indeed sound pretty broken to me. ”

You contended broken, Mike. Not me. I contended that Enchanters COULD dominate the field of play and politics. On average they didn’t. On average for every 2-3 spells they cast only one had appreciable impact. About once per adventure enchanters overcame some remarkable threat, and generally they were only really awesome consistently in political campaigns. There were also a LOT of level limits on Enchantment abilities, primarily only allowing them to function against weaker opponents with any reasonable chance of success.

Diviners crush mystery games. That’s undeniable, and they are not necessarily allowable if you want to run those kinds of game. But they were merely good in combat.

Enchanters were crushing in combat WHEN their spells worked, but their spells failed about 50% of the time, typically they affected one character when they affected any, and on a failure they did no damage. What Enchanters were was very swingy. If your opponent rolled a 1 on a save throw he was frozen in place, often regardless of level. If he made a Save Throw he ignored you entirely.

Just talked to some friends, they said they believe that WotC intentionally punted all the mind-altering magic NOT as Mike contends because it was broken, but because they want people to buy the next splat book with the Psion (which will replace the Enchanter).

If it’s got that – if you can just make something up that can then be a consequential gameplay element – it is still a story game, and not a minis game or board game or whatever else. Whether it is a member of that specific subset of story games which we traditionally call roleplaying games, I don’t know – that part’s hard. Let’s work on it in another thread sometime.

And as for the challenge of making a non-combat character in D&D: Are you serious? When have non-combat PCs ever been a good idea in this game? It was never the point, and no, that has not changed. I guess we are supposed to criticize D&D for being too D&D-like now? *shakes head*

And the core books, despite Tori’s point about adding rules later on, are what most players will make their judgement on. So far, gamers seem to either really like or really dislike the new system. Or be upset about the state of D&D Insider.

“The point here is that a flat fee is a disservice to the potential of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition and the virtual tabletop concept.”

Add this point to what Dave just posted -

“It really is the worst of both worlds for WotC: they alienated some customers by touting the digital tools as a part of the game, and alienated the people who wanted it by not having it.”

- and well, I don’t expect much to happen with D&D Insider. By the time they get it sorted out, those that were excited enough to pay the high price will have moved on.

As for the old “it’s not a roleplaying game” canard, it would be more convincing if the term “roleplaying game” had ever had an actual definition that anyone could agree on. (Everyone, please note that that does not constitute an invitation to argue about said definition in this thread. I am starting to think we really do need a good one, though, and may open the subject soon. After all, if we only know it when we see it, doesn’t that make it pornography?) But really, the functional definition of “roleplaying game” in the culture is, tautologically, D&D. It’s an RPG, by definition, because in the eyes of the world it’s the RPG. If we want another kind of game, it’s easier on us in the long run if we start calling it something else. (Ideally something with a clear definition that’s backed up by the rules this time – I’m looking at you, White Wolf.)

Lee: Enchanters and Diviners do indeed sound pretty broken to me. Brokenness isn’t what I have in mind when I think “in-play support from the rules.” Your point about options in combat, however, is well taken; while I have been hearing from most players about how creative battlefield tactics are getting a lot more support and reward, I can’t vouch personally that they’ve really taken care of the ol’ “I shoot Magic Missile from the rear again, now let me finish my comic book” problem, which I always had as a player of magic-users. I wonder if this flaw has a solution as creative and elegant as some of the other solves in 4E, or if it isn’t somehow endemic to the D&D design space. If the latter, it wouldn’t surprise me to see the traditional robey-beardy wizard archetype entirely missing in future editions of the game, replaced entirely by Vin Diesel clones emanating crackly magic from their fingers, the better to spread the spellcasting around to some people with fighting skills. In other words, the perceived problem of lack of magic-user options is as much semiotic as mechanical.

Tori: excellent points. Lack of support for something in the core books should not be interpreted as lack of support for something in 4E. They are called the core books for a reason, though: WotC obviously has opinions on what the core of D&D is about, and they’ve expressed those opinions in the form of these three volumes.

I received an email from Wizards on May 20th that states the following:
“We are planning to launch the D&D Insider beta in early June to coincide with the release of the Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition launch. The initial stage of beta will include the first iteration of the Rules Compendium, and will be open to all community members who are interested in checking out what we have in store. As we move forward, additional D&D Insider applications will roll out as they become ready. When it comes time for us to start beta testing these applications you will be among the first to know.”

While it’s only the Monday after launch, there’s still no evidence that even the beta of Rules Compendium will be released any time soon, and there are apology posts over on their messageboards basically saying “we’ll roll them out when we’re ready, we’re sorry.”

They’re pretty much stuck now, having to complete everything they promised at some point (either early and buggy or late and less buggy.) It really is the worst of both worlds for WotC: they alienated some customers by touting the digital tools as a part of the game, and alienated the people who wanted it by not having it.