I HAZ D&D 4e PHB2

[Zoei]

And its glorious, Invokers and Avengers are awesome.

[Queen Octavia]

As if 4E being like WoW wasn't bad enough, in the expansion (PHB2) they had to release Kael the Invoker. Guess I just have to wait another year for the PHB3 to play a death knight

[Zoei]

I am sorry, I think you have this mistaken for a 3.5 thread since you think its warcraft like.

[Queen Octavia]

Um, are you nuts? 4E is way more akin to WoW than 3.5.

In any event, I didn't like the PHBII very much. I play a wizard, and the only thing I liked in the book were the Deva race and some of their feats and the implement mastery feat. Somehow I don't think my DM will let me respec my race though

I was looking forward to some of the classes, but they disappointed me.

Orb Wizard & Shielding Swordmage for the wiiin!

One thing I would like to do now with the PHB2 out is to play a party of all arcane types.

[Zoei]

Optimum builds over suboptimum builds-3.5 is far more Wowesque about this where the gap is Huge.
Loots-Loot is sigificantly more defining in 3.5 than it is in 4e.. like in WoW for certain classes.
Class Requirements-How many times have you heard "We need a cleric" in 3.5? That was mechanically built out of 4e. So I guess that's abit more Wowesque in that you know there are multiple types of HEALER in vs "OH GOD WE NEED A PRIEST"
Spec-3.5 class specing is alot more unforgiving and generally very specified, like in Wow. 4e the specs are generally both able to do what the class is for plus something else

So Generally as someone who has played all 3 I find 3.5 more MMOesque, 4e is more Gameist though. But that's not really the same as MMOesque.

[Queen Octavia]

As someone who plays WoW, 3E and 4E, I am of the strong opinion that optimization in WoW and 4E is incredibly straight forward and simple. Sure, WoW has some pesky math which makes it more irritating than 4E, but its really no different.

3.XE, on the otherhand, is bjorked to snark. Anything goes, and the things you can do are nonsensical. If you are playing an optimized character with lots of source books, you smash the game into unplayability long before level 20, and epic is just beyond silly.

But the reason 4E is calling WoW-like over 3E isn't for tweaking/minmaxing/optimizing/whatever you want to call it. Mainly it's things like respecing, the fact that there is almost no penalty for dying in 4E and they used roles in combat very similar to those found in an MMO and designed combat to fit that.

PS - Have you ever played the WoW board game? I <3 that muchly.

[Zoei]

As someone who plays WoW, 3E and 4E, I am of the strong opinion that optimization in WoW and 4E is incredibly straight forward and simple. Sure, WoW has some pesky math which makes it more irritating than 4E, but its really no different.

having seen people in wow who try to Hybrid. I'll disagree. Its pretty easy to mess up a hybrid.. damned easy really. Alot easier than it is to mess up in 4e but about as easy as it is to be useless in 3.5

3.XE, on the otherhand, is bjorked to snark. Anything goes, and the things you can do are nonsensical. If you are playing an optimized character with lots of source books, you smash the game into unplayability long before level 20, and epic is just beyond silly.

Very much like early Wow or really every MMO early on where they try and hide all the powers behind fluff and trick people into being less powered than they could be.

But the reason 4E is calling WoW-like over 3E isn't for tweaking/minmaxing/optimizing/whatever you want to call it. Mainly it's things like respecing, the fact that there is almost no penalty for dying in 4E and they used roles in combat very similar to those found in an MMO and designed combat to fit that.

Respecing is in 3.5 too.

The Roles are what you had is BD&D. Fighting Man(defender), Thief(Striker), Magic user(controller), Cleric(leader) they have just been refined. I can clearly see the difference between a Defender and tank in an MMO, and ESPECIALLY a Leader and a Healer. Frack I WISH MMOs used this setup instead, it would be so much more interesting.

if Dying wasn't a problem in 4e why do people complain about TPKs? Seriously its not like you respawn automatically in town if you die. Someone has to live, have some cash and carry you back to town.. not really different from the Old days.

PS - Have you ever played the WoW board game? I <3 that muchly.

Nope.

[Queen Octavia]

Optimum builds over suboptimum builds-3.5 is far more Wowesque about this where the gap is Huge.
Loots-Loot is sigificantly more defining in 3.5 than it is in 4e.. like in WoW for certain classes.
Class Requirements-How many times have you heard "We need a cleric" in 3.5? That was mechanically built out of 4e. So I guess that's abit more Wowesque in that you know there are multiple types of HEALER in vs "OH GOD WE NEED A PRIEST"
Spec-3.5 class specing is alot more unforgiving and generally very specified, like in Wow. 4e the specs are generally both able to do what the class is for plus something else

So Generally as someone who has played all 3 I find 3.5 more MMOesque, 4e is more Gameist though. But that's not really the same as MMOesque.

"We need a cleric" was REINFORCED in 4E. You could play without a divine character in 3E no problem, you definately need a leader in 4E.

I would agree that loot in 3e is more simlar to wow than 4e loot - mainly because 4e loot is boring and it sucks.

There really isn't much speccing in 3E, although some people do tend to like building glass cannons that are one trick ponies (IE charge builds)... which suck when their trick gets countered. Any good 3E character is versatile.

One of the biggest things 4E did to make it more wowlike was the elimination of multiclassing. Yes, I know technically there is still multiclassing (My 4E wizard actually took a cleric paragon path), but not really (My 3E wizard was a Swashbuckler3/Wizard1/HumanParagon3/AbjurantChampion5/EldritchKnight8).

Dying in 4E really is problem free, aside from TPKs where the party was too stupid to arrange for a friendly NPC to bring 'em back. No loss of CON or level... big difference.

The "Fighter" role in 4E employs a cheap trick (marks) just like wow does (aggro) to create the tank role. In both cases I found it artificial and silly, 3E has no such nonsense.

In 3E you can make a character be whatever you want, if you know what you're doing. In WoW/4E you are limited to (DeathKnight,Priest,Druid etc) / (Cleric,Paladin,Wizard) etc. Because of this I find 4E less roleplay friendly, which is why I prefer 3E. I think combat runs much more smoothly in 4E though. WoW is okay, but I would never play it over d&d... lacks the social aspect and the roleplaying.

[Zoei]

"We need a cleric" was REINFORCED in 4E. You could play without a divine character in 3E no problem, you definately need a leader in 4E.

3.0 and 3.5 were explicitly built around having a Cleric. That's in the Design notes, its something they intentionally worked against in 4e. Did people do it? Yes. People do things like run all Striker parties in 4e. Makes the DM's job a lot harder, but so does not ahving a cleric in 3.0/.5

I would agree that loot in 3e is more simlar to wow than 4e loot - mainly because 4e loot is boring and it sucks.

Its a problem with games you are either defined by loot or its sucks.. its hard to balance(though I think Exalted generally does it best)

There really isn't much speccing in 3E, although some people do tend to like building glass cannons that are one trick ponies (IE charge builds)... which suck when their trick gets countered. Any good 3E character is versatile.

You haven't played with True Munchkins have you? I've been in plenty of "I am playing a well rounded character that does my niche well" and "I am god and I do your niche better because I optimized".

One of the biggest things 4E did to make it more wowlike was the elimination of multiclassing. Yes, I know technically there is still multiclassing (My 4E wizard actually took a cleric paragon path), but not really (My 3E wizard was a Swashbuckler3/Wizard1/HumanParagon3/AbjurantChampion5/EldritchKnight8).

And I find that MUCH LESS MMOESQUE. Those complicated crazy builds that require questionable math and must be built from level one. Plus Multiclassing defeats the purpose of playing a classed game anyway. If you want to be the beautiful and unique snowflake play something that doesn't ahve classes, like Exalted, or Runequest Or any number of games.

Dying in 4E really is problem free, aside from TPKs where the party was too stupid to arrange for a friendly NPC to bring 'em back. No loss of CON or level... big difference.

True resurection. And why should "friendly npcs" be dragging your corpses back if you die? That's not explicitly in there.. hell if something kills you it probably shouldn't be something that friendly npcs go in and get you

and Con/level loss is much more similar to WoW's damage to equipment or Res sickness.

The "Fighter" role in 4E employs a cheap trick (marks) just like wow does (aggro) to create the tank role. In both cases I found it artificial and silly, 3E has no such nonsense.

Knight class.

Also a Defender is not a tank. A tank gets wailed on all day and hits back barely a Defender you turn your back to it you feel pain, a much better balancing effect.

In 3E you can make a character be whatever you want, if you know what you're doing. In WoW/4E you are limited to (DeathKnight,Priest,Druid etc) / (Cleric,Paladin,Wizard) etc. Because of this I find 4E less roleplay friendly, which is why I prefer 3E. I think combat runs much more smoothly in 4E though. WoW is okay, but I would never play it over d&d... lacks the social aspect and the roleplaying.

You really can't be "whatever you want" in any game outside pure freeforming and even then there's social contracts. Multiclassing is a Horrific mistake in a class based game, since its waving the white flag saying "We really want to be a skills/attributes game but we have to have classes.."

If a class with alittle on the side isn't enough to get your concept across you should be playing a Stat/skill game instead.(exalted is awesome)

[Queen Octavia]

Internet ate my post in a strange way.

Gist of it was that I think a multiclass system is superior to a classless one.

Classless systems I have played (Marvel, Shadowrun, a few others) have all seemed very vanilla compared to the plethora of character options (feats and class features) that 3.5E d&d offers.

Do you recommend any classless system with a number of character options which can compete with 3.5E? 3.5E has quite a few PRCs to cherry pick some pretty nifty class features from.

[Zoei]

Internet ate my post in a strange way.

Gist of it was that I think a multiclass system is superior to a classless one.

Classless systems I have played (Marvel, Shadowrun, a few others) have all seemed very vanilla compared to the plethora of character options (feats and class features) that 3.5E d&d offers.

Do you recommend any classless system with a number of character options which can compete with 3.5E? 3.5E has quite a few PRCs to cherry pick some pretty nifty class features from.

Any system that has a lot of books is really all that has to answer there. And even with all 3.5 had I can't build a starting Solar exalt.

[Queen Octavia]

Hm, I don't know anything but exalts but after reading a lousy wiki page it seems like they are just sorcerer types with well rounded selection of known spells. If I had to hazard a guess staying within core with no houserules I would go for an Aasimar Sorcerer6/Paladin3/EldritchKnight10 as my off the cuff answer.

I've never had any trouble building anything I wanted when given liberal access to splatbooks.

[Zoei]

Hm, I don't know anything but exalts but after reading a lousy wiki page it seems like they are just sorcerer types with well rounded selection of known spells. If I had to hazard a guess staying within core with no houserules I would go for an Aasimar Sorcerer6/Paladin3/EldritchKnight10 as my off the cuff answer.

I've never had any trouble building anything I wanted when given liberal access to splatbooks.

Nope, not even close, before we get into "power pool" vs Spells per day, we also have the whole "Armor and magic thing"(Armored sorcerer build being considered one of the STRONGEST in exalted vs a weak attempt at things) but that's ignoring neat stuff like mutations, social combat, the ability to shape societies and actually having a good mass combat system

[Queen Octavia]

Well then you need to delve into the expanded psionic handbook, pick up the ability to manifest in medium armor (IE mithral fullplate), use alter self or something for mutations, fear effects for social combat, leadership to emulate getting key people in society to do what you want, and you're screwed for a mass combat system... but I think realistic physics should be avoided... but then I would be contradicting a similar argument I made in another thread just 30 seconds ago... so nevermind.

[Zoei]

I mean normal armor. THough magic armor is better there's solid builds with just normal nonmagical stuff.

Fear effects aren't even close to social combat. Actually playing out Debates and mind changing descions with mechanics.. with powers that allow people to be convinced of just about anything and not the vagueness of charm person. And I don't mean "getting key people in society do do what ou want" I mean powers that are "This nation will believe in my God now"

I wasn't talking about physics. I mean a good system for "I want to fight an army" (Both by myself and as an army vs army) something D&D does rather poorly.