4e I Has It, Is Garbage!

'Anime Fan' wrote:

Sorry, Dire Lemon, if I ticked you off... :cry: I'm not trying to make hard feelings or anything, I'm just saying don't you remember when 3E first came out, everyone said they hated it, it was not true D&D, WOTC had created a dud and it was going to be a collosal failure, etc, etc...? Now some of those people are hardcore 3E/3.5 supporters, praising the virtures of 3E/3.5 wheras before, they said they'd never play it! And 3E did change some of the monsters and deities; Gruumush became Chaotic Evil (he was LE before), Maruts became Inevitables, and so on. In the immortal words of Dr. Seus... "I am Sam. Sam I am. Won't you try Green Eggs and Ham?"

I don't remember. I wasn't a big D&D player when 3E came out. Didn't follow it at all.

I don't have a problem with it being different but it's not just different. It's completely different. I'm sorry for the short response but I just don't have the patience right now to write a long post only to potentially have most of it completely misinterpreted. Don't feel like you're the only one who's done it though.

Seriously?! Enchantment is my favorite school, damn!

So... They made the classes more unique by removing options that were originally available to multiple ones and making them exclusive to specific ones?

"These aren't the droids you're looking for."

That said: Boo.

Enchanters/Charm-spell-specialist mages and Psion (Telepath) are completely different from a ROLEplaying perspective. There's a long tradition of charm person (or whatever you want to call it) in Earth stories and folklore, long before humans even came up with the word "psionics."

I could argue that some powers should be psion-only, but most any ability of the charm type should be available to enchanters. (Mindlink and Mind Probe, probably not.)

Not to mention that, at least in 2e/3e, "psion" does not necessarily mean telepath. Looking just at movies and TV, you also have telekinesis and pyrokineticists. Edit: Oh, yeah, and precognition.

What about diviners and clairsentients in 4e?

Seriously, guys. Some of you are really missing some information here. Honestly, take a look at the books if you haven't because you're under some misconceptions.

1) "Enchantment is gone! No more Enchanter wizards!"
Plenty of wizard spells are enchantment-style effects. They're just not named after the enchantment spells of previous editions because they don't do quite the same thing. The 4th Edition designers have talked about how they wanted to avoid situations like "make this Will save or become an NPC for this battle." But there are still mind-control effects and that sort of thing. That's why Charm is a keyword for powers in 4th Edition, and spells can still daze, stun, immobilize, and slow you.

Examples:
Mesmeric Hold (Wizard 13)
Sleep (Wizard 1)
Color Spray (Wizard 3)
Maze (Wizard 25)
[Don't be turned off by the levels. Level 13 isn't what it used to be.]

2) "The 4th Edition rules are incomplete!"
Not so. They just include different things than 3rd Edition did at its onset. What was "core" in 3rd Edition is not what is "core" in 4th. You can certainly play D&D for years using only these three books. I don't think it's unreasonable that you can't play your 3rd Edition campaign using only these three books.
We don't have half-orcs, but we have tieflings (charismatic tieflings, no less). We don't have bards, but we have warlords. We don't have freeform multiclassing, but we have flexible multiclassing and classes that you actually want to play. We don't have frost giants, but we have four different kinds of hags (I know which one I prefer). We don't have psionics, but 3rd didn't either.

We got tieflings as a core race! We got githyanki and githzerai in the first Monster Manual (each with a two-page spread)! We got a freakin' mezzoloth (I know you're unhappy with the word "Demon" appearing on it, but give 'em a break)! We got cyclops, goristroi, boneclaws, devourers, fomorians, slaadi, cambions, maruts, and Orcus!

I'd say that, for a setting that was discontinued ten years, two editions, and one company ago, we're doing alright. For a setting that is not played in by most D&D gamers, we have a lot to enjoy 4th Edition for. For a company that supposedly hates us so much, they seem to have made a game that works pretty well for what we want to play.

3) "The fact that someone had to BEG to get Sigil into the DMG is ridiculous."
No way. Think about what you're saying. Come on. Sigil has never, EVER been mentioned in a D&D core rule book. Not in 30 years. Now it is. Ten years after Planescape. You think this is a step back? Even 3rd Edition's Manual of the Planes had only a brief mention of Sigil, and the 4E DMG was even more accurate, in my opinion.

4) "WotC kept us in the dark for as long as possible with 4th Edition changes, and when 3rd Edition was coming out they filled their magazines with information about the new edition!"
Wizards put up article after article about the new edition on their website. They even had all their design and editing staff keep blogs about what they were working on. Yes, sometimes they teased the fans with hints as to what they were up to, or they couldn't give complete information on a system that wasn't complete yet, or they made you actually buy the books to get the whole deal, or they made you wait to find out more, but I followed the 4th Edition news pretty closely, and I had a very complete idea of what 4th Edition was like before I bought the books.
You could also turn the argument around. Wizards filled Dungeon and Dragon with 3rd Edition articles? "WotC is greedy and just wants to make you buy their licensed magazines to get any information about the new edition! The Man is making me pay to get advertised to!" 3rd Edition is being canonized now that 4th is out, just like everyone got fuzzy feelings about 2nd when 3rd came out. If you think that there's a stronger backlash against 4th Edition, it's just that you're more connected to passionate people because the Internet is more prevalent than ever.

My bottom line
I think 4th Edition is a good rule system. Maybe you prefer 3rd Edition's mechanics. Maybe you prefer 3rd Edition's cosmology. But I don't think you can fairly argue that 4th Edition is hostile toward playing Planescape.

As for Sigil in the DMG, I admit I might have read too much into the desire by Wyatt not to put Sigil in the core book.

More importantly, I only have so much $ I'm willing to spend on D&D so I choose Pathfinder because:

1. James Jacobs wants it to be GW compatible
2. Pathfinder setting is cool
3. Shemmy wrote part of it.
4. The 4e team made it pretty clear that they think the GW is dead, that guardinals get a bullet in the head, etc.

Damn. Rip's right. I forgot about the 3.5 DMG having planes in it. Still, I stand by my argument that we should have no reason to demand Sigil be included in the 4E core rules this early in the game.

...

The thing about the 4th Edition alignment system, however, is that it doesn't actually exist. It's just one or two words that appear for some reason on your character sheet, on monster statistics, and in the descriptions of gods. Your character acts the way he does, and except by inferring based on behavior, there is no way in the game for anyone to ever detect, determine, or discover your alignment. It basically exists only because the concept won't die easily and it's apparently useful to new players, to help them remember that their character is a good guy and that it's okay to kill these humanoids because they have an evil alignment. No rule, mechanic, effect, or event in the game calls upon, asks, affects, requires anyone's alignment. They might as well have removed the alignment line and used that space on your character sheet to record your PC's favorite color. Red. What's yours?

Alignment is, for all intents and purposes, removed from 4th Edition. If it makes you happy, then write it down and then roleplay it. If you don't like it, then roleplay anything you like and record your PC's favorite color. It won't change the game at all and no one will be able to tell the difference.

Well, I’m not going to propagandize one system or the other, since I play and enjoy both 3E and 4E regularly now. There’s certainly parts in 4E I find less appropriate for Planescape, but since Sci asked about advantages specific to this edition, one thing immediately comes to mind:

Planescape is (to me at least) very much about legendary and (literally) world-shattering events and figures, especially pertaining to the high-ups of various planes and factions – Bel’s double-double cross, the defeat of Vlaakith the githyanki Lich Queen, etc. One thing that I do find 4E does really well is make good groundwork for legendary figures with a solid basis for that tier of play, especially when it comes to legendary martial prowess. Figures such as Gith and Levistus are supposedly legendary swordsmen, yet I’ve never seen such prowess captured as well as some of the higher end martial powers in 4E. There's actually powers dedicated to specific groups of weapons like spears and flails, just as we have specific schools of magic like illusions and divinations.

Yeah, if you happen you like 4E, you will probably be spending quite a bit of money on books, but the same was true in every edition! 2E had a bunch of accesory books like Tome of Magic, The Complete (fill in the blank) series, The Player's Option series, Encyclopedia Magica, etc, etc. 3E had the thin guidebooks on Classes (3.5E had thick hardbound books), The Manual of the Planes (a must-have if you play 3E Planescape!), Deities and Demigods, The Epic Level Handbook, and so forth. 4E's strategy is not something new; in every edition, the goal has been to sell us a bunch of books, not just the core three rulebooks. I have at least twenty 3E books myself, and intend to buy the 4E equivalents of them as they come out. As for those of you who are cash-strapped, well, you'd be in the same spot whether you liked 4E or not, right? Actually, if you don't like 4E, you can save all that money!

There used to be spells and magic items that could detect or even change your alignment, magic weapons and tomes that could hurt you if you were the wrong alignment or help you if you were the right alignment, and planes of existence that could give you penalties if you were the wrong alignment. Plus certain monsters were vulnerable to particular aligned weapons. All that's gone now.

The same ISN'T true! In 3E, you could just buy the core three books and that worked just fine! Everything that came after PH, DMG, and MM was just optional. In 4E, you're going to have to buy more than just the three core books if you dont want to play a game without Barbarians, Bards, Monks, Druids, or Metallic Dragons, just to name a few things they're intentionally delaying.

I think the point is that all those other 'basic' classes in 3E were extras. For 4E they've intentionally removed classes that had been included in the 3E PH in order to make you buy more books if you want the same things you got just for buying the original Player's Handbook.

In 2nd edition the classes in the PHB were Warriors (Fighters, Rangers and Paladins), Priests (Clerics and Druids), Rogues (Rogues and Bards) and Wizards (Specialists and a general mage).

I know some classes were added with the Complete Handbooks. Complete Barbarian, Ninja, and Psionicist.

EDIT: Ah here we go. Wikipedia to the rescue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alternate_Dungeons_%26_Dragons_classes

A lot more 2nd ed ones than I realized. However, many of those I remembered as kits not classes.

The monk appeared in a couple of things but I can't remember which supplements. The Dark Sun campaign had a few new ones. I know there a few more but I can't remember them. Sha'irs come to mind but I can't remember what they're about.

Kits were much more prevalent throughout 2nd ed. These were templates which were applied to your character class. Like taking Paladin - Inquisitor (To take an obvious example from Baldur's Gate 2). Abilities would be lost for the gain of others. All the Complete Class and Race handbooks had handfuls of these, and they were taken at character generation.

I really liked the Dwarf Handbook

Am I the only person here who is happy to see alignment get the treatment? I've always found it to be a pretty arbitrary means of creating simplistic moral archetypes for characters. I am happy to see it pushed to the background, and taken out of the mechanics all together. I wonder if this guy has bad intentions or not.

"Lets ask some people around town and see if we can't find out a bit more... Oh wait, never mind. I forgot that I've got detect evil memorized today."

Alignment just encouraged metagaming.

Bingo. I wouldn't have minded if the system had been removed. I do mind if CG and LE, in particular, are removed while LG and CE stay around.

Okay, their "Good" alignment sounds a lot like Neutral Good, and their "Evil" alignment sounds more like Lawful Evil. I miss Neutral Evil and Chaotic Good, in that case... (LE and NE are NOT the same... compare a baatezu to a 'loth.)

This demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the CG alignment. CGs dislike excessive order, structure, and authority; that doesn't translate to acts of deliberate malice.

The nine-sided (or 17-sided, using the full outer planar wheel as your graph) alignment system works admirably for describing two specific dimensions of your philosophical affiliation. The law-chaos axis charts your view of the rights of the individual versus the requirements of greater social groups (the libertarian/authoritarian divide that dominates our political discourse), while the good-evil axis charts your general compassion and altruism. It's not "simplistic" - it's actually marvelously complex and flexible. There's no reason a neutral good character allying with a chaotic evil character makes any less sense than it would if you took those particular labels away. Either way you're talking about an alliance between a kind person and a sociopath; the presence of a system that charts these particular qualities doesn't make the situation any more or less likely.

Altruism is a pretty unambiguous standard - the near-universal "golden rule."

Alignment doesn't try to chart qualities like nationalism, mental disorders, personal neatness, hair color, or favorite band. It also doesn't pretend there aren't shades of gray or exceptions - being lawful evil doesn't mean you can't feel altruistic toward your limited circle, for example, as long as you're sufficiently sociopathic over all. There's obviously much more to personality than alignment, but this doesn't qualify as a weakness of the system any more than the fact that your intelligent score doesn't handle qualities like persistence or ambition is a weakness of that attribute. It does the job it's designed to do, and shouldn't be criticized for failing to do something it wasn't intended for and doesn't need to do.

I disagree in terms of alignment. I'd never considered anything beyond Good/Evil until the alignment system came along. Suddenly my adolescent mind burst with the concepts of Order/Chaos. If anything, it broadens one's understanding of RL because oftentimes when people try to define something as "Good" they at least partially mean something on the Order-Chaos axis.

Now, in games I agree it should be an optional system, because there are games where it will only detract from one's fun. However, I personally like having it in the mechanics precisely *because* it doesn't make complete sense. It fits my belief that no objective morality can truly define anyone, yet the tension from this presumption is what makes a great game. It's not fair that good aligned vampires can be hurt by spending time in certain parts of the Upper Planes, just as it's hard to see that the Beastlands represents Good as Innocence. If it was all clear cut and simplistic it would be boring.

I remember when someone pointed out on the PS mailing list that the Outer Planar system didn't seem just, another poster replied that justice was in the hands of the PCs. That fight to make good against the Multiverse itself, to me, is more compelling than getting to level 50 and then asking for the LoP's stats...not that Die Vecna Die! didn't have its charms.

The conflict between objective and subjective is what makes Planescape, imo, such a great setting. If everything had to be bound to an objective morality, Planescape becomes too much like the reputation system of a CRPG. If everything is subjective, it becomes less grounded in the fantastic. If Elysium has no connection to Good as a force, or the Abyss to CE, then these are just dimensions that begin to feel sci-fi.

This goes inline with my favorite comics author Grant Morrison - at least when he writes DC. He takes obscure fluff and spins it into gold. This is why I also liked the APs Paizo put out, and disdain the sterile trash that is the hackneyed battle between gods and Primordials.

This is why I'll never buy a 4e book (edit: unless its used). I can't stand being told what's fun, especially when these claims are meant to justify the latest scam...er...product.

Or maybe "extremely aligned" mortals, such as paladins or fanatical priests of particular deities.

More of say, Graz'zt and Pazuzu and less of Demogorgon and Orcus might help with that.

it becomes clearer why Paizo had to make a stand with PFRPG. I can understand why Wizards wants to be able to revoke the license, but the problem lies in the lack of reasoning given.

they can pull down an entire product line if even one product pushes the envelope.

after Paizo being backstabbed on the magazines, i suspect many companies are going to be more careful dealing with WotC. if only they'd sell off pre-5th age Realms, the Blood War, the Inner Planes, and all the "anti-fun" parts of D&D to Paizo.

I don't have time today to respond to each comment individually, so instead I will just generally clarify the essence of my argument, since I feel there was a couple misinterpretations.

Alignment is an absolutist judgment of the moral shape of the universe. Right and wrong are declared objective facts of the D&D world by virtue of its existence. That Good and Evil and objective features of a character also means they are objecive features of the universe. What this means, in practice, is that judgments of Good and Evil must be made from a consistent point of view, otherwise the whole concept is rendered meaningless. The concept of Good and Evil can only be consistently applied if there is a singular point of origin for that value judgment. Practically speaking, this means Good and Evil are fixed features of the universe, which means Good and Evil is not the judgment of the character, ever, but an act is in fact objectively right and objectively wrong by some standard.

The problem with this is, where is this standard originating from? Who is making this judgment of absolute right and wrong? In practice, it is obviously the GM, but the underlying implication is that there is an unyielding moral fabric to the universe that is, in essence, correct, and that deviation from that is incorrect. So a given act is and always will be evil in this world, or is and always will be good.

My problem with this is that this insists upon a couple things. One is a static world. A world in which good and evil are fixed means your characters choices are prejudged, and the actions of your character are always measured against this standard. In essence, it is as if in the real world, god came down to everyone in person, clarified his/her vision, stated what was objectively right and wrong, and corrected people when they made mistakes. In the real world, of course, we have to judge the standards of our actions without the feedback of God. This means we must reason, evolve, change, and evaluate the justness of our actions constantly, because, really, we can't reference something like alignment to determine what is and is not a Good act. Part of any spiritual struggle is the very fact that there is no way to know for sure what is right and wrong. If this were not true, theological debate would not exist. THe primary differences between any given set of christians is different viewpoints on what is and is not Good. One man's good is another's evil, and neither viewpoint can ever conclusively be shown to be wrong or right.

With alignment, this conflict is non-existent. Alignment gives us a clear reference point for what is right and what is wrong, and therefore, the conflict is between Good and Evil according to specific person's interpretation of what that is (Which necessarily must be the DM, which means players who disagree are simply wrong), and not so much different interpretations of what is Good (even if such conflicts can take place at the margins, two lawful good kingdoms engaged in a vicious war simply doesn't make sense from an alignment perspective). I should note here that I do not have the same objection to chaos and law, as these are reality reflecting principles based on physical things, and is not reflective of a value judgment, such as an act being good and evil, but is instead merely a statement of character preference for either highly ordered systems or lowly ordered systems.

Now, where this whole thing starts bothering me is actually with settings like Planescape. Planescapes central appeal is that beliefs are living breathing things that shape the universe. The universe, being shapeable, has no fixed values. Yet in the middle of this there is a judgment hanging over head in the form of alignment. Evil is a concept people almost never apply to themselves. The application of it is a subjective practice predicated on an arbitrary set of values. What is and is not considered good is highly relative (please dont confuse this with me saying that Good itself need be relative, because that isn't my point). Planescape reflects this relativism of belief halfway, by saying the shape of the world is just a reflection of thoughts, borrowing from James Derrida. But alignment challenges that very notion by saying that, contrary to this, there is an objective overlay to the universe, in the form of alignment, that can never be changed by belief. The belief that a Good act is Evil, or vice versa, can never change alignment, because alignment is a strict game mechanic based on a fixed interpretation of Good and Evil that is essentially Judeo-Christian in outlook. So, a New Guinea cannibal is undeniably Evil from a mechanical perspective, no matter what he believes, even though Planescape tells us belief shapes the universe. THis is not because we can objectively prove cannibalism is evil, although there may well turn out to be a God that informs us this is so in the aterlife.

So, the problem arises, if a person, or people, or indeed a God is convinced their actions are in fact righteous, why do we need a mechanic to tell us that Yes, they in Fact Are, or No They In Fact Aren't? Shouldn't this all be up to player interpretation? Why do we have to force a moral interpretation on a universe that seems to explicitly say the rightness of an action is determined by belief, NOT by an objective standard? To me, this very much limits how you can play around with these issues because on one level it replaces a legitimate spirtual and intellectual problem (how do we determine what is right and wrong, and what do we do in the face of that determination) with a quick and dirty answer in the form of alignment. Yeah, you can roleplay your way around it, but the fact is, alignment is making a rigid value judgment, which means you really cannot raise questions such as "What is Good really?" because the answer is provided for you mechanically. Sure you can ignore that, or broaded your interpretation of it, or try to flex things in to it, but these are all ways of working around the system itself, and once you've gone that far, you might as well dump it all together, because it provides you with a greater freedom of action both as a player and a DM.

the alignment grid exists as a objective value for the same reason armor class does. its an OOC scale for us as players to judge and agree on how the game works. the character doesnt go around saying they are lawful good, just like they dont go around saying they have an 18 AC. yes, a character can hae internal disagreement and anguish over what is good ("was it better to save the one child i knew i could, or should i have tried to save the other dozen i didnt think i could?!? was one route even more good then the other, or was one merely failure?? oh god! why art thee so cruel?!?") two LG civilizations can even war with each other simply because of different emphasis (like worship of a different god, a different aspect of LG). all characters, regardless of their alignment, by definition believe their beilief to be 'better' and 'more right' then all the others. they probably call it 'good', if they really felt like putting a label on it... or 'realistic' on the other end of the spectrum. just like people do in real life.

i do however think 1st ed. should have come up with something better then 'good' and 'evil'. but remember they were new then, and most people thought roleplaying was synonymous with devil worship. they HAD to make it pretty blatant the game was 'about' acting as lawful and good crusaders vanquishing the evil forces of the world. and because of that, being the first successful and well known game system, i think we are stuck with the terms.

and yes we need a OOC value system for this, exactly so we dont have these arguments. alignment should not limit your character actions at all. play your character as you think you should, with no thought of alignment, and the alignment will follow your character. if your referring to situations where things change directly as a result of a shift in alignment (like loss of paladin status, loss of god-powers), your character is simply having an identity crisis. in each of those situations there is a direct force telling your character what it should or should not be doing (the god, the code of ethics it embraced to begin with), and failure to comply is what loses your status (which may or may not change your alignment).

so if the alignment system itself is not limiting play (merely the misunderstanding of it), dumping it wont allow greater freedom. dumping it in fact costs the game a dynamic that has been a staple since the beginning. you questioned why two LG civilizations would war with each other... why in the world would two 'unaligned' gods war with each other? what in the hell does 'unaligned' even mean within a system that still has an alignment scale? unaligned means zero intelligence to me, a creature that acts on instinct alone. with or without alignment all the same things are possible. but with one option there is an objective grid for us to play with it, both from a game mechanics perspective, and a character guideline one.

and the insinuation in 4e (is it even insinuation when its that obvious?) that chaos is inherently evil just really bothers me. but i think i am probably preaching to the choir on this board.