4e I Has It, Is Garbage!

Drake

Yeah, yugoloths are now "soldier demons". *eyeroll*

The reasoning given in Worlds and Monsters was as shoddy as it comes. I would have accepted them saying "We changed it because we didn't like them and we have new ideas to work with, trust us." However the claim that the original 1e source that first featured the 'loths had them specially associated with CE alignment, or the Abyss, or demons is laughable. That original source goes out of its way to say that they aren't associated specifically with either the Abyss or the Hells. Being summoned and bound by drow in one 1e module doesn't make them CE or allow making them CE in 4e a way of being faithful to that oldest source.

It's acceptable reasoning only if your readers take your claim at face value and accept it as truth and don't either have knowledge of that source, or happen to look it up and find out that you're pulling a fast one.

After the hack-job that was the BoED in 3.x, I shouldn't be surprised to see how they treated the 'loths (and all the other planar races) in 4e.

Wouldn't it be more like you're trying to set up a lemonade stand after having been given some apples?

Out of curiosity Shemmie, what did they hack up in BoED?

'Dire Lemon' wrote:

Wouldn't it be more like you're trying to set up a lemonade stand after having been given some apples?

Ah ha! Ye of little faith - you haven't seen me in the kitchen.

Should be interesting to say then least.

This is rant, feel free to skip it.

This is how I felt before and now. Planewalker has done AMAZING work in writing and art that rivals printed rpgs, and to me personally I'd rather spread this version of PS than to see WotC butcher the setting with a terrible book that they'll then claim is proof PS can't sell.

It's funny, because after looking at the books, I thought about being circa 10 and seeing the 1e Manual of the Planes. It was amazing, wondorous, and in the end too expensive for me to demand of my parents.

Years later I bought a pdf version but by then Planescape had come (and despite being out of print in has never gone).

Beyond that, I wondered what exactly had happened to Vecna, or on the battlefields of Pesh. What was the mentality of exemplars? I read through the 4e books and while my interest was occasionally peaked, most of it read like a manual on VCR programming.

I felt no new excitement for the new cosmology, in fact much of the supposed great ideas fell flat save for some good art. The higher eladrin didn't seem to have that mystical connection with nature, and why the lamia is now a swarm of beetles seemed to be applying an old name to new concept with no basis. The fey didn't seem any more threatening than before, and if anything were more one-dimensional.

The rules seem like they'd be very programmable and if this was the basis for a MMORPG/CRPG I think I'd love it. But that actually is the problem. Why pay the excess cost to support D&D if it offers nothing over Mythos (never pay unless for loot/leveling), Guild Wars (Pay once) or WoW (a cost equal to the DDI which removes all the prep time)?

Where are the intrigues, the deeper politics, power of belief, even the idea of campaigns in more advanced civilizations? Where is the inspiration to sit down with a group of people with pen and paper to take the time and money to attempt combining tactical combat with acting like you're in a play where the only audience is the fellow actors? D&D takes an unbelievably amount of work for a hobby, and making it take less time is pointless if the reason for playing is gone.

It's a game that is simpler, easier to learn. It will be an initial success, how I can expect any less with the unbelievable amount of marketing they've done (much of it needlessly turning aside old fans)? But as the new MMORPG pricing models come out offering as much as 4e but with less financial/time investment, I can't help but believe this success will fail to draw enough new gamers and certainly isn't going to last the supposed decade they claim it will.

I'd be absolutely thrilled if WotC simply OGL'd the gith races and the illithid.

ROFL.
If DC 15 on nature check tells you that bears sometimes live in forests or caves, then I would say that, it would be DC 40 or 45 to indentify Gazebo.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems to this factol that all this hate being dumped on 4e is kind of ungrateful. I don't know if that's the right term, but I think there's a lot more intelligence to the new edition than we planescapers like to credit it.

We should face the fact that Planescape isn't an official campaign setting for D&D right now, and hasn't been for at least 8 years now. That doesn't mean that it's not important to its fans, but it does mean that it's not necessarily the focus of a developer's work beyond traditional elements of the overall game.

But it doesn't need to be. They're changing the game, and that means that they're changing some of the elements that we liked just fine before. But they're giving us some really great tools to tell the same stories that we liked before.

No one here should be surprised that Sigil's space in the DMG is minimal, or that there's only one yugoloth in the MM. Remember: neither of these appeared in any form of 3rd Edition until the Manual of the Planes. And, of course, our reaction to the MotP is to decry it in every way short of demanding every copy of it burned.

It's a lot that the planes are getting attention--attention that can easily be used to benefit a planar 4e game in whatever edition or cosmology you choose--and that we're getting a game that simply works so well.

Right now I'm hoping to convert my current game to 4th Edition once my copy of the books arrives, and to play it in the Great Wheel, using whatever changes I have to make. Honestly, I think it'll still be easier than running Planescape in 3rd Edition (I notice that this thread fairly consistently ignores some of the problems that we used to scream and shout about on these same forums). But we'll see, and maybe I'll run Planescape in the new cosmology before long.

Clueless, my books haven't arrived, but I'd be psyched to do some conversion work if the site wants to put out 4th Edition material (what's the state of the site's license in the new edition?). I'm already thinking about how bariaur and rogue modrons would look, and I like the stuff I'm coming up with.

Good points, Rhys. I have to say I'm pretty neutral (unaligned, whatever)on the whole 4e thing. Fact is, my home game still uses 2e, so 4e doesn't affect me so much. Will I buy it? Probably not. If I see something that looks cool (like a 4e planescape setting), I'll shell out for it, but if looks crappy I won't, bottom line.

I do happen to think that criticism is a good thing, and despite the title of this thread, some reviews of 4e by our PS community have been fairly positive.

Anyways me attitudes on this are I like the how the classes are designed. Those were perhaps best designed since now I feel like wanting to play a "non-magical" class, even though technically all classes "cast spells" now.

But outside of that, there's many pet peeves in this new edition.

For one thing, it's the most lacking of editions in what I feel makes D&D well D&D. The fact that you'll need at least PHB2 and MM2 for it to feel more complete, is a failure on one part.

I'm also very annoyed at the design team putting down a lot of things about previous editions. I think their idea of 5 alignments are stupid, and the things they've done with many perfectly good monsters is horrible. Starting from the moment they changed the Succubus, to their constant decrying of "needless symmetry". The fact that while the monsters have meaningful things in combat, they're just really really flat. For example I found nothing appealing about Swordwings, that's a monster that's really boring.

Each monster needed at least a paragraph on ecology to go with the lore, and maybe a section on "for DMs" or "for players" to include things like plot hooks and the monsters place in the world, to at least make these monsters interesting like Privateer Press did in their Monsteronicom. Instead we get a small description and often useless lore about a monster.

I assume the new Manual of the Planes will probably feature all of the different realms of the Astral Sea, which may bear some resemblance to the various outer planes we know and love. Or - more likely - they'll take elements that people liked, and toss them into a blender. I'm reserving judgement until I see it, though it may be a book I actually purchase.

As far as the Lady of Pain's alignment, IIRC she was given a Lawful Neutral alignment in the Bloodwars CCG. That was during Planescape's heyday.

Orcus has gotten a hit point raise with each edition. Remember he only had 120hp in 1st edition. I prefer to think of beings at his power level as manifesting their power at a variety of levels as needed - thus the varying hit points and abilities. Paizo used this to interesting effect for Demogorgon with the Savage Tide adventure path.

The new alignments roughly equate as follows: "Lawful Good" = Lawful Good, "Good" = Chaotic Good, "Evil" = Lawful Evil, "Chaotic Evil" = Chaotic Evil, and "Unaligned" = Neutral (despite WOTC's claims otherwise!) Left out of the new game are the alignments Neutral Good, Neutral Evil, Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Neutral... How are they going to handle beings like the Inevitables, who would not fit in as either "lawful Good" (they could care less about Good or Evil) or "Unaligned" (they are definitely on the side of Law)? I guess Inevitables just can't exist in the new edition!!!

Slaad are chaotic evil, which does annoy me, but they've generally been depicting them as that in most places since 1e. I always felt the source material needed a better representation of the Slaad as being CN, but beyond Xanxost they never really did a good job at it.

[FR novel spoiler below!]

I kind of liked the way slaad (slaadi?) were portrayed in the Erevis Cale series. There was an awful lot of brain-eating, but that one slaad who was so picky about his clothes, and got so incensed when one character insulted the carpets...

So today's 4E art preview was the red dragon. Now I know they are reusing art but this was credited to some guy named Lars Grant-West when he clearly just painted over the 3rd edition red dragon by Todd Lockwood.

I know the tail and leg are at a slighlty different angle, but c'mon if they're just going to use Lockwood's art, why not bring in Lockwood to redo it?

3E Monster Manual by Todd Lockwood

4E Monster Manual by Lars Grant-West

-420

I also like these characters, tough they weren't nothing like I imagine slaadi generaly

I wish there's more info on their boss' race

I finally got the 4E books, and boy, are the changes ever massive! For all intents and purposes, it's a whole new game that just happens to feature some familiar names and classes. This is most definitley NOT a continuation of what was built up in 3E and 3.5, with the exception of some incidental details (Glasya ruling the Hag Countess's layer, for instance). On the plus side, the game looks like it will be a lot easier to run, and monsters are easy to create and modify (making demons into devils, or visa versa, would be a snap). Deities no longer have spell domains; instead it's more like how it was in AD&D 1st Edition, where all Clerics draw from a common pool of spells. (A few spells and abilities are restricted to worshipers of certain gods, but not many). It is definitely more like a minuatures game, since movement and areas of effect are defined in terms of squares, not feet (but you can convert it back if you care to). Not a game for everyones taste, but easier for new players to learn, and the layout is clean and easy to read. I'm about to run out of time, so I'll finish my review later... but highy "iffy" for traditionalists and old-school players...

Well, defining it anew (or rather keeping it new) was one of their design goals. I guess they achieved it there.

Been to a playtest today, good times, basically. But yes, as long as you treat it as a different game. I stand by my previous statements - I think it's a very good game to show to beginners, because it functions a lot more comprehensibly, but it also functions a lot like a boardgame. I think it's pretty unhandy to use a lot of the powers without the grid. It really stresses tactics a lot. Not that it's a bad thing, group dynamics was pretty good, since two of the guys who played never had contact with D&D before, and grasped how things tied together pretty quickly, all in all.
However, 4E teaches a beginner encounter- and power-management over actual RPing. The powers do hog most of the spotlight. My impression, at least.

I dunno whether the changes to Saving Throws are good or bad, just feels other way around, whatever.
Yeah, bogged down skill-system, good for quick board-gaming style, but I happen to like more complex skill systems that kinda tell something about the character (I think it's nice to know whether someone is better at hiding or sneaking, just for kicks). I think 3Es mix was okay, 4E works. Less searching on your sheet.

I have to say, I do like the split between spells and rituals. I dunno if that works out in the long run, but separating the "takes ages to cast and you would never use it in batte anyway except for some weird spur of the moment" from "Zap!" does create an appealing new dynamic in regulating how much a caster can do a day. I'm actually pondering whether or not to adept that idea for my 3E games in one way or another, hm.

At any rate, if I were to play a lot of one-shot-sessions with beginners or casual gamers, without too much worries to consistency in background, or with less non-rules-RPing in general, I suppose I would pick 4E.
Otherwise, I don't deem changing my setting-feeling (and consistency) for it (except Rituals, but that's "semantics" to me, because it really doesn't change the way a character in the world would view it).

If you're in for "classic adventuring" with the oldschool-archetyps, and prefer the way heroes are presented in old adventure movies and the Lord of the Rings (yeah, sorry, I had to) over a note of comic-action and a lot of "FX" (flashes and minor magics and powers everywhere! Keep'em coming!), stick with 3E. If action, tactics, "stunts" (think Mike Mearls Iron Heroes, with the Reserve Points being somewhat similar to Healing Surges and stuff), the Eberron-Setting and the pulp and action-aspects especially are your thing, go for 4E.

The final question is, what hast more "substance". Maybe it's just the 3E-guy in me talking, but I think the classic way has more substance in the long run. It has been working with minor and some major alterations on the way, but it kept working until now. I suppose the flash-effect of 4E's powers might not hold up for so long. This may be a bit off, but I see it like this: Matrix 1 did impress you. Matrix 2 had a hard time living up to already high expectations, and where 1 overdid it in a cool way, 2 began stretching it - with 3 doing absolute overkill. Star Wars anyone? Okay, let's not get into geek discussions - I just think while Part 1 was "whoa", 2 will be "yeah, nice", and 3rd issue "meh. seen it all". I think Wiz will have a hard time keeping it coming to keep 4E cool and flashy, with 1st Level Characters in 4E already doing tricks that players previously yearned for doing finally from 5th level onwards (not in power, okay, but at least in numbers and pure "cosmetic effect"), so players in the past would really, really be looking forward to later levels. I dunno, playing that 1st level character was pretty cool. But I think it was too cool, so I doubt what will come after can still deliver to my expectations. And as such, I assume 4E tries too hard to be a "Blockbuster". Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies? I guess when it's time to get there, it will only top it with some cream, but by then, you're already full. Just a guess.

I guess that's my (not-so-conclusive) verdict.

Formians are the expansionist bug people

Fomorians are sort of like the Irish version of the Greek Titans. In any case they're completely different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fomorian

I've read that allot of 4E is basically just a straight ripoff of real world mythology.

Didn't the first printing of Deities & Demigods include the Melnibonean deities and the Cthulhu mythos? Those were the days! :mrgreen:

What I mean is, even more so than previous editions. I remember reading something supposedly from a wizards guy where he basically said that they decided to make things just like real world mythology in order to bring in more new customers. (e.g. people who don't like D&D or RPGs in general.)