More on Tools

It has been a slow month for blog posts, but speaking for myself, it hasn't been because of a lack of D&Ding... when not trying to keep up with the articles from Wizards of the Coast, I've been playing some more with the tools, mainly the Character Builder and the Compendium.

In the past, usually while discussing multiclassing, I've complained that making a "themed" character is much more difficult in 4e, because you don't have the flexibility that the plethora of prestige classes gave in 3.5. With the poor-man's multiclassing that came with 4e, you couldn't accomplish much, but the hybrid rules are another matter...

In 3.5, I was never a multiclasser, just a prestige classer -- some might quibble about the difference, but I think it's significant, especially for the spellcasting classes whose pretige classes often had that familiar line: "+1 level of arcane spellcasting" or what have you. Otherwise, I was a one-class kinda guy, always seeing multiclassing as weakening the original class, because you were sacrificing something for every level you didn't take in your original class. The gestalt rules were a nice solution to this, because they meant you didn't sacrifice anything, and they allowed for a high-powered campaign -- as long as that was something you wanted.

The hybrid rules for 4e, though, do a pretty good job about giving you your two classes without making you any more powerful that a single-class character. Granted, our actual playtest experience with hybrids has been limited to Griff's wizard/fighter dragonborn, but I have now had quite a bit of experience making hybrid characters using the Character Builder, and none seem over-powered.


This is, of course, if you ignore the fact that I am a serious min-maxer when I put my mind to it, thus making a character "over-powered" in certain areas, almost certainly at the expense of something else. Crwth the cleric has, whether in pen-and-paper, Neverwinter Nights or Dungeons & Dragons Online, been a healer before an undead fighter, boosting Wisdom as high as it will go and ignoring Charisma completely. And a DDO Bard that completely maxes out the Haggle skill, just to game the auction house, is sure to sacrifice in other areas -- like melee fighting of any kind.

But to me, that's what a themed character is -- something that focuses on a particular idea (or two), at the expense of everything else. If I'm making a "healer", they're not as good at any of the other roles that this class is known for. If I'm making a "divine warrior" (always choosing powers that deal Radiant damage before any other power), I'm making a character that will be at a large disadvantage to anything that can resist Radiant damage. I go into this willingly, ready to take on that challenge if it arises, for the focused direction of the character's build.


And this brings me to the real point: the Character Builder and the Compendium make this a HELL of a lot easier to do that it was in 3.5. Granted, the idea of a themed character is a bit different now; you would browse a bunch of splat books in 3.5, find an interesting prestige class or two, and build around that as your goal. In 4e, I find myself seeing the occasional power description, class variant or paragon path, and get an idea to focus upon.

The Character Builder ensures that I have, at my fingertips, every power or feat that is available at any given level, instead of having to have a stack of books to check, and the Compendium lets me filter out certain keywords ("radiant", "prone", "necrotic", "heal") to help choose from my selections. This let me quickly try my "healing monk" (really a cleric/avenger hybrid) focusing on healing while at the front line; my "protector" (cleric/shaman hybrid) my attempt at a completely maxed-out healer; my "divine warrior" (revenant cleric) based solely around the Revered One epic destiny's Manifest the Divine feature of using each Channel Divinity power per encounter, instead of just one; and my "beastflanker" (beastmaster ranger) that could solo (with companion) quite effectively.


Unfortunately, my forays into rapidly building character concepts could have gone smoother. Sure, figuring 30 levels of a character in about 20 minutes is pretty good, but there are ways that it could still be improved. The search functionality in the Character Builder is only for actual names of powers, feats, etc., which doesn't seem that useful - no one knows the name of what they're looking for, they just know some of the terms that it contains. I had hoped that I could type in "heal" or "undead" into the power list, or feat list, or even equipment list, and get the Builder to filter things out. I suppose it DOES say "search" and not "filter"...

The Compendium does help here, as it has a single word filter (could use a second, in some cases), and lets you further filter by other criteria, depending on the item. Going back and forth between the Compendium and the Builder is a bit incovenient, though (I say while on my four-monitor setup); I think having the compendium embedded in the builder window would be very handy indeed. Also, being able to leave multiple search results open would be handy -- I'd like the list of powers with "resist" in them as well as the list of feats, available at the same time, if I'm making a this-guy-gives-crazy-resists character. And, I really don't like the obscuring window that the Compendium uses when you look at a specific entry -- are frames so uncool now in web development?


These are minor gripes, though, when I have to admit that these computer-based resources are making 4e a lot more interesting to use. When I got the Player's Handbook, my eyes glazed over seeing the same block format for power after power -- and I LIKE that there's a template for them! It just isn't a good browseable format for getting a feel for a class. I still have no clue what kinds of powers warlords, paladins, fighters, rangers, etc. have, because I just can't imagine reading the powers list right through. Having a means to search through them saves me from that, provided I know what to search for.

And, I hate to admit it, but access to all of the content online might be a bad thing for book sales... while I like having a physical book over an digital one in general, for my purposes the online version is more worth it right now, and a few books have now gone unpurchased because of this. Does this mean that Wizards should require "activation" of online content, using a key that comes with the hardcover book, to unlock the data? I thought they were going to do that, and am obviously glad they haven't. Perhaps the marketing people decided that seeing the content online would drive people to buy books they wouldn't otherwise consider?

An almost wrap-up of the hybrid

A few almost possibly sorta final impressions of the hybrid rules I've been "playtesting".

All in all, I'm really enjoying the hybrid rule. It's not quite up to snuff with the old 3.5 multi-classing in terms of flexibility, but it has some definite strengths.

For starters, it's greatly simplified everything. One of the things with 3.5 multi-classing that always gave me a headache was keeping track of the various level dependant things, such as caster level. My character might be 18th level overall, but her caster level might have been only 15. Throw in some ECL from being an oddball race and those waters became even muddier.

In 4E there's none of that. Yet.

I also have to admit that there's some value in restricting players to combining only two classes (with a third possible via those terribly weak "multi-class" feats). It was pretty easy to get carried away with the multi-classing in 3.5. Just a quick skimming of the posts in the WotC forums is proof of that. There are classes in there that I've never even heard of, strung together in a chain that resembles alphabet soup.

The 4E hybrid helps the player police himself. While I'm generally against anything that restricts creativity and imagination, trying on some handcuffs can be fun once in a while. (IMJH)

At the very least the hybrid rules have allowed me to play the character that I originally envisioned. A wizard who enjoys wading into the front line.

Without the hybrid rule, my Dragonborn was capable but he really felt like a fish out of water. He wasn't fulfilling his role and it showed in every way. So he ended up standing back with bastard sword in hand, ready to defend himself if someone came after him, but otherwise dropping Scorching Bursts and trying to look interested.

Now, with the hybrid fighter/wizard combo he's up front blasting hobgoblins off the backs of their wolf mounts with his Thunderwave, and then dealing out triple damage with a Brute Strike. Without the stifling presence of filling a certain role combat is fun again.

As far as balance goes I still haven't seen anything to suggest that he's out of whack compared to the rest of the party. He gets roughly the same bonuses to hit in melee as our comically inept paladin and our kill thief ranger, and is about as effective with his "spells" as the cleric.

That said, I still get the feeling that "spells" aren't as effective as melee attacks (either up close or ranged). They simply seem to miss more often than they should. It's like everything's Fort/Will/Reflex defense is one or two points too high. Hopefully, they're churning out some feats that can give casters a bonus to hit with certain types of powers.

I need to note that we recently caught a little bit of cheating that I'd been doing. Namely in my feats, as I clearly skipped the small print and assumed that my hybrid wizard would retain his ritual casting and spellbook. In my defense, those are pretty core to the class. I guess they had to cut something to make the hybrid a sacrifice, so I had to re-tool my feats to regain the Ritual Casting ability, among other things. Oddly enough, I haven't missed not having a spellbook and hadn't really given it any thought at all since initially generating the character. I'm sure there's some reason or benefit for having a spellbook, but it hasn't affected my playstyle.

Yet.

So you wanna play an Arcane Archer

Normally I don't pay a lot of attention to the "Character Concept" articles in Dragon, but the one from Issue #374 provides a perfect example of the one thing that robs the enjoyment from 4E.

The Arcane Archer.

Anyone who played 3rd edition is probably familiar with the Arcane Archer. It was a nice little prestige class from the DMG that was most likely overshadowed and forgotten under the deluge of later releases. Of all the prestige classes the Arcane Archer and Shadow Adept are the two that I'd most like to see as classes in 4E. Since we're going to get so many classes anyways, why not port some of the better Prestige Classes?

In the meantime this Character Concepts article offers up a way to build a makeshift version. All well and good so far.

If you are thinking at all like I was, you naturally assumed that they'd start with a Ranger. The author, Matthew Sernett, does indeed address that assumption. "When it comes to archery, no class holds a candle to the ranger, but the ranger doesn't have much that seems like magic in terms of ranged attacks."

Okay. Agreed. So what do you suggest Matthew?

"Fortunately, Arcane Power provides the bard with a number of ranged weapon powers that hit the target."

What? The bard? Are you fucking kidding me?

This is precisely why the prospect of my gaming group sticking with 4E fills me with such loathing and dread. The whole I have character concept "x" but the only way I can come close to doing it is through some half-ass compromise. I might not want to play a bard but if I want my Arcane Archer, well... I've gotta suck it up because there's no other way to do it.

And it's not a question of whether the bard class is "better" than the ranger class. It's about options and choice and imagination. You know. The parts of DnD that are far more important than streamlined combat rules. The parts that make the game fun.

Say I want to play a rogue or stealthy type who likes to coerce enemies into following him around the battlefield. A taunting type with a splash of swashbuckling. In 3.5 I'd probably start with a rogue or bard and then work in some fighter levels for the feats. Easy peasy and fun.

In 4E this character probably needs to be able to "mark" so... what? A paladin multiclassed with bard? I honestly don't know. So I guess I'll shelve that concept and just cookie cutter myself a generic rogue or fighter or whatever. What difference does it make? Really?

Honestly, I could probably roll a die to generate a class, slap on a name, and start playing. If I want to put some thought into it I need to forget about the class name and focus on the powers it offers. It's the menu of powers that are important. So what if being a paladin makes absolutely no sense for my character concept. I mean, it's not like there's room for any sort of character development. God forbid that I should try to develop a backstory and personality for my character. Picking a name is about the limit of creativity allowed in 4E.

But I suppose that if we jump straight into combat it'll be fun. Right?

Hybrids

Today's Dragon articles included a Playtest article on Hybrid Characters. In a nutshell, this is multiclassing for 4e.

But wait, doesn't 4e have the multiclass feat? Sure, but did anyone really think of that as multiclassing? Not around here, surely. It let you dabble in a second class, getting a little taste of it, just enough to wish for the old days.

Hybrids, though, let you do more than that. As you advance, you advance in your two chosen classes equally; in fact, you get the hit points for both, the bonuses for both, the weapon proficiencies, the surges... sounds too powerful, right?

Well not quite. There are "hybrid" versions of the classes, which lessen the impact of these combining rules: clerics get 7 surges a day, hybrid clerics get 3 (plus their other hybrid class's); clerics get healing word, hybrid clerics get a hybrid version that's once-per-encounter.

The powers are as usual, though, which means that you have the same number of powers at each level, but can now choose from both of your hybrid classes. There's a small restriction - that if you have more than one type of power (daily, encounter, etc.) you must have at least one from each of the classes, much the same as the druid class requires you to take at least one beast-form and one non-beast-form power.


The article starts off pointing out that if you choose two classes that fill different roles, then your character is not going to adequately fill either. This means that if you're in a larger party, you might want someone else to also be a leader, or controller, along side you; but is also means that in a smaller party, you can help fill in roles that might have gone absent.

An interesting side note also mentions that "[t]he system of classes and roles in D&D is designed to ensure that every character has a clear purpose at the table and that no character can easily become marginalized by poor choices made in character creation," and goes on to warn that "[t]he hybrid character system discards many of the safeguards built into the normal class system."


Unfortunately, until this playtest turns into official rules (having ironed out what we Insiders might send them in commentary), we won't have access to the hybrids in the Compendium or the Character Builder. Being my preferred method for trying out 4e builds, I don't know that I'll be trying out this hybrid very soon, even though I could just do it by hand. I think that hybrids between similar roles will turn out to be better characters in general, because they're not splitting their attention, so much as their methods. A ranger/rogue is still a striker through-and-through, even if only half of the abilities are rangery and half roguey.

However, having read Griff's opinion on the wizard, and how you just end up using the same at-will power over and over, perhaps having a second, completely-different type of at-will at your disposal might be the key to livening up a character. In fact, Griff's wizard fancies the bastard sword, so having a controller attack of a wizard as well as a defender/striker attack when up-close might be the key to turning Griff to the dark side of 4e. Perhaps he'll let us know.


One last thing I should point out is that you can still take the multiclass feat when a hybrid, letting you dabble in a third class. I think that this, if balanced properly, might just allow those of us addicted to countless classes and prestige classes from 3.5 to get closer to the customization we miss.

Onward ho!

Our group recently came to the nearly unanimous decision to continue on with 4th Edition, at least through the next module in the WotC series. Guess who the lone dissenter was.

Anyways, I’ll carry on, even though I feel like the kid being forced to eat his vegetables before he can leave the table. The thing is, I’ve tried cauliflower before and I don’t like it. Trying it again isn’t going to change my opinion. Its not going to suddenly become good. Even putting melted cheese on it won’t hide the underlying yuckiness.

Same thing with 4E. I’ve tried it for several months and it simply isn’t as much fun as 3.5. Another several months isn’t likely to change anything. The addition of the PHB2 and the Powers books might help, or they might be the melted cheese.

At any rate, I’m going to “retrain” my Dragonborn wizard into a fighter. My thinking is that part of the problem might be the expectations I’ve carried over from 3.5. Namely in that when I play a spellcaster, I want some actual choices in what spells he knows. By switching to a fighter, a class I never got around to playing in 3.5, I’ll drop that expectation. Then we’ll see if it’s just the spellcasting classes that are boring or if it’s all of them.

So I’ll have another bite. Pass the melted cheese please.

Powers, feats, and innate abilities

I read the latest Design & Development article a few days ago. It was interesting to hear about the design decisions that went into the feats of 4e, and how they compare to those that appeared in 3rd edition. But for fear of beating a dead centaur, I'm going to open up old wounds and mix metaphors.

In recent posts, we've talked about how the powers have made the various classes feel the same, since everyone has them. In 3rd edition, you had your spellcasters (and as mentioned before, they were varied enough to easily feel different); you had your Fighter, who dominated the feat selection throughout their progression, giving them a definite martial feel; and the remaining classes had their numerous class skills -- Barbarian with rage and DR, Rogue with a dozen skills and sneak attack, Monk with all sorts of goodness, Ranger with different paths, and the Bard... yeah.

And everyone felt unique. Every character played differently. And, it has to be said, multiclassing let you stir that up even more. The new feats, though, have pretty much taken the place of class-specific abilities. Sure, you don't get them automatically, but you get to choose them often enough, and they're very narrowly focused that you can label most of them as class- or race-specific. This came up when I last levelled up my Cleric - I think there were four feats that I could choose from, for which I qualified.

And speaking of multiclassing, as I have before, I've gone all hypocritical and multiclassed my Cleric, going with a bit of warlord just to powergame the healing aspect a bit. But is this going to make me feel any different from any other Cleric? Make me feel anything like a Warlord?

The Des&Dev article breaks down most of the 4e feats into four categories: static improvements to stats, situational improvements to stats, racial power mods, or class feature mods.

The first two are generally available to everyone, and thus don't help to differentiate anyone; the racial power modifications are minor, as all racial powers are; the last group, which focuses on each class's meager differences, is the only group that really makes an effort to "customize" the characters, to decorate them once they leave the cookie cutter. But does this little bit of icing help, or are they, in the end, equally indigestable, all tasting the same and making a mess on the table?

A not-so-brief summary (after 3 levels)

Having just hit 3rd level I figured it was time to sum up the things that I love and the things that I hate with 4e.

The Good:

Everything to do with Encounter design. I just love this. Everything from the mixing and matching of monsters, to their roles (as an aid for the DM only), to the use of terrain. It’s all just good shit. I mean it. WotC knocked this one out of the park.

The skills system. I was lukewarm on the untrained vs trained thing at first, but I’ve really grown to love it. It’s simple, elegant, and best of all dumping ranks in doesn’t outgrow the curve of the DCs, making what should be an incredibly difficult show of skill (ie, tumbling around a dozen ninja warriors without getting hit) into a can’t be failed exercise in boredom (ie. that DC 15 never goes up).

Racial abilities. They add a nice little kicker to choosing a specific race. Great idea.My only knock against them is that they just don’t go quite far enough. I’m putting this under a good thing, with the presumption that future books will push this great idea to the heights it deserves.

The monsters. Another homerun for WotC. From the foundation of their design being for one encounter (ie. no more abilities/spells that won’t be used during a fight) to the stat block layout, it’s all much improved. A special favorite of mine is the use of signature powers for every monster. The kobold’s free shift and the goblin’s shift after a miss etc... Just awesome.

Races. Love the new races. The Dragonborn are a perfect addition, and the split of the elves into Eladrin and Elf is beautiful. The Tiefling... well, three out of four is pretty damn good. And the re-tooling of the other core races are all very nicely done.

The Bad:

The multiclassing (or lack thereof). Part of the fun in DnD is mixing and matching existing classes to whip up my own perfectly tailored “class”. Was it powergaming and unbalancing? Sure. Was it potentially nerfing yourself if you took the wrong class or feat? You betcha! But it was fun and challenging and I loved it. (The added perception that they nerfed multi-classing solely to justify the creation of future books, as in “don’t make up your own class, buy this book which has a bunch of new classes that almost fit your concept instead”, well, that kinda pisses me off.)

Spellcasting is just boring. It’s all just different powers now and that, in some vague way, robs me a little. Okay, my wizard can drop “Scorching Bursts” every round, but whoop-dee-doo. It’s dulls-ville.

Action points. It took me a while but I’ve decided that I hate the way they implemented these. When they first appeared in the 3.5 Eberron world, I thought they were quite cool. A nice little 1d6 boost to any roll to change defeat into success strikes me as “heroic”, which was the intent. In 4e getting to do an extra action in a round might be heroic, if you fighter uses it to make an extra attack and topples two ogres at the same time. More often than not the result of the Action Point is pretty mundane. A healing surge gets burnt, or a bad guy gets hit for an extra 5 damage. Yawn. Worse yet, I’ve used an Action Point for the extra move to get away from danger. Yeah. That’s “heroic”.

The magic items. I know they felt that players were far too dependant on magic items. But so what if they are? At least it gave us something to aspire and save up for. Something to quest for even. Now they’re just lame.

Retraining. WotC should take this concept and shove it up their ass. I hate it. 'Nuff said.


The “yeah buts”:

The assortment of powers. I like them overall, and the fact that every class gets them is both a good and bad thing. It makes every class unique in way, which is good, but it also (in an admittedly weird way that I have trouble defining) makes every class feel the same. I wish I could elaborate on this but it’s just my subjective feeling.

The feats will surely fill many a book (while emptying many a wallet) and every character gets a shitload of them, which is good. I suppose. But I’ve yet to see anything that I want to aim towards. They’re just so watered down now. A piddly bonus to a pair of skils, or the ability to wear armor and such are just... blah. Where are the Whirlwind Attack type feats that required levels of planning and then provided an exciting in game payoff?

The overall streamlining of the game. This came really close to being up with the good, but for one thing. There are times where I get the feeling that “time wasters” of the past (ie. confirming critical hits etc...) have simply shifted to new time wasters. This could be simply because our play group hasn’t gotten a complete grasp on the rules and powers but everyone’s action starts with opening the PHB to check on the details of our char’s powers. I’d rather be rolling dice thanks.

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

I’m not totally sure but I think so. This Character Concepts gives me some hope.

For starters there are some very cool powers scattered around the PHB. Some of them enable a player to do things in 4e that 3rd edition or 3.5 couldn’t come close to emulating. There seems to be a nice assortment between damage dealing and attacking different defenses. Plus every class has something at higher levels that I can see producing that “wow” factor that’s been missing so far.

On the downside, it looks like the fun doesn’t really begin until the Paragon Tier. There are some nice things 10th level and lower but not much that I can get excited about. I mean, relative to my character’s level and the enemies we’ll be fighting, Fireball and Lightning Bolt are old standbyes for fun. But they’re a far cry from Elemental Maw or even Lightning Serpent (admittedly a 9th level Daily, so pre-Paragon. Still, 9th level before the first really cool power appears in the Wizard’s repetoire?).

I’m still disappointed in the watered down and restrictive multiclassing rules. As the author, Peter Shaefer writes “Paragon tier is when multiclassing comes into its own.” First off, I don’t want to wait 10 levels before that multiclassing feat I took starts to “come into its own.” Secondly, I really don’t see much of a payoff or a change in the character going all the way to the Epic Tier summary. The example characters still strike me as a basic warlock or fighter, with a smattering of powers pilfered from the second class(es).

I still intend to try out the multiclassing for myself, so my opinion of it might change in a year or two. For now I still feel like there’s no point in multiclassing, and that makes tailoring a character a distant dream.

Returning closer to the point of the article, I am heartened by the fact that thematic characters are easily done. Either of the two Schaefer gives as examples would be fun to play. Better yet, it makes me wonder what themes I’ll be able to come up with and experiment upon. Already I’m looking forward to developing my dragonborn wizard along the storm theme. With more books coming I eagerly await the new feats and powers.

What I’m not looking forward to, but might be forced into by the rules, is the whole swapping of powers thing. Again and again Schaefer has his examples swapping this power for that, and some times he switches back two levels later. Everytime I saw it I cringed. I mean, it makes no sense to me that one day my character can use Dread Star and the next she can’t. That’s like me suddenly forgetting how to drive but suddenly knowing how to fly a helicopter. To me, that stands out as the worst part of 4e. Unfortunately it’s clearly a fundamental basis of the whole set of rules.

A rant on class

I seem to have touched on something based on the comments on my last post, so I’m gonna use it to pad my post count.

For starters, I’ll be the first to admit that my opinions are colored by the 3.5 past. I will not however apologize for that.

When I got a new car I did the same thing. The new one has more horsepower and a better air conditioner, but the old one had a better dashboard layout and cornered better. Comparing old to new and apples to oranges is just human nature. Still, point taken Adam,.

As for being patient and giving WoTC time to put out more material, well, I’ll concede that one too. I have no doubts that over the next few years we’ll be swamped with numerous offerings (or depending on how you look at it, schemes to pry our cash from our hands and pad their corporate bottom line). I’m also sure that the upcoming FRCS and certainly the PHB2 will be chock full of new powers (whether martial or arcane or divine). That’s all well and good. In the meantime while I wait for the main entrée I’ll make due with the bland soup of the day.

My bottom line point is that 4e classes all “feel” the same to me. No one has anything that really makes them stand out anymore. I’ve yet to see anyone in our party do something that made me do a double take. There has been no “oh wow, that was cool” moment.

The rogue has a ‘piercing strike’ that does some extra damage coupled with a move. The paladin has some kind of ‘smite’ thing. The cleric a ‘radiant strike’. My wizard the ‘scorching blast’. At first they were each on their own an intteresting effect to see in combat. Done every other round they lose their edge and become just another attack.

In 3.5 every class, every character, felt unique. They had their special flavors, their quirks, their strengths and weaknesses. Maybe it’s just me but I thought that was a beautiful thing.

Each class had it’s role in 3.5, only they were subtle and unspoken. They weren’t slapped down in stone and used like chains to lock us into a certain playstyle. It was understood that sorcerers and wizards stayed in the back while the fighters and paladins stood up front. Clerics and bards laid out the buffs and healing. Rangers and rogues crept around the edges and got in their damage when an opportunity opened up.

However, if you wanted to push a class into a different role, it was possible. A few feats or some multiclassing and my sorcerer could wear a chainshirt and step up to melee with the best of them. For sure it cost me a level of spellcasting and that arcane failute check bit me a few times, but that was part of the fun. I could get creative and experiment and revel in the failures.

True. The old multiclassing rules opened up some abuses. But when did “powergaming” become a bad word? If I want to take a level of fighter for the free weapon and armor proficiencies, or start as a rogue at 1st level solely for the skill ranks, well… where’s the harm? Who am I hurting? Some chump who’s playing the game in Yakima? No. I’m just having some fun. Last time I checked that’s the whole point of any game.

As another example the 3.5 ranger fought with two weapons or mastered the bow and could track. That was his thing, his role. For sure any other 3.5 class could do that with the proper feat selections. Same goes in 4e where a feat or two will do it. The difference was that in 3.5 feats were a precious commodity. Did your paladin really want to ‘waste’ a feat to track? Not bloody likely.

In 4e however nothing is off limits. Wanna learn to raise the dead? Spend some of the plethora of feats and learn the ritual. For all intents and purposes class no longer matters. In their mad quest to make every class equal to every other at every level (no more fighters outshining the wizard at low levels, only to have the tables turned in the high levels) they've given us vanilla throughout. Might as well just have "Adventurer type A" and "Adventurer type B" and get it over with.

Strategy seems to be a thing of the past as well. Sure, positioning your mini on the grid is more vital than ever, but past that there’s very little to think about. It’s a simple case of MMO style button mashing. Pick your at-will and your target and role a d20. No longer do you need to worry about meting out those special abilities or spells for a crucial moment. Fire away my friends! Plenty more where that came from!

Personally, I liked the angst over every decision. Especially when it came to spellcasting. I loved the whole “do I cast this or save it?”, or “do I try a spell that has a Will save because that giant seemed to slough off my Fort save based spell last round?” Those were the tactics and strategy that I really enjoyed. And when I ran out of spells, I loved to have my sorcerer grab her sickle and jump into melee. Puny hitpoints be damned! She wore that magic mithral chainshirt for a reason dammit!

That’s a thing of the past it seems. Now my dragonborn wizard is going to take the feats needed to wear chainmail only because there’s nothing else to spend them on. He’ll continue to grab his bastard sword and hack away at the bad guys despite having scorching blasts at his beck and call. He’ll keep on breaking out of his role because that’s the way I play. That’s called fun.

Ps. Despite my tone, I really am having fun with my new character. It is still DnD after all.

Pps. I am going to try out the multiclassing feats, just to try them. I’m also keeping an open mind. I can’t stress this enough. My opinions six months from now might be a total 180 from today.

Multiclassing and prestige classes

I know it's a month late -- my defense is that they're overwhelming me with all of these Excerpts. But after reading the entries on Multiclassing and Paragon Paths, I'm more than a little disappointed.

I know that one of the tenets of 4e D&D was to make things simpler, and classes were certainly something that could overwhelm the newcomer. With the near-dozen classes in the 3.5 Player's Handbook and fifteen prestige classes in the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide, players already had quite a few choices with single-classing or multiclassing.

Then add in all of the accessory books, which, whether a book on magic, evil or monsters, seemed to provide at least one more class or prestige class to the list. With so many (too many?) choices available, it became daunting to try and decide what the next hero of the world would look like.

Of course, there's nothing saying that you had to look through them all, that you had to stray from the starter classes, or even consider multiclassing (or prestige classes). In fact, I'd say that the idea of customizing your character to that extent (whether for power-gaming purposes or that perfect character theme) was the purview of advanced players who could handle an overwhelming amount of choice, and who relished piecing together that obscure combination that exemplified their character vision.


I think 4e has gone too far with simplifying these choices. The multiclassing article basically reduces the idea down to a few feats that give you another class's abilities. And instead of prestige classes, which had a minimum level at which you could start down that path (unlike a true multiclass), we now have the paragon path, which always starts at 11th level.

So, instead of being able to customize your character's training and destiny level-to-level, you're restricted to being different from the fighter down the block only once you've survived a third of your adventuring career. Yes, sure, your feats still allow you to be unique, so now you're the fighter who uses a longsword instead of that guy beside you with the axe. Fighter, meet fighter.

"This approach lacks the intuitive elegance of the 3E system," the Multiclassing post says. I'll say. So much for my human monk/fighter/sword of righteousness/forsaker/initiate of Pistis Sophia gestalt NPC that I never got to use. It will be interesting to see what future class-related releases are produced, either by Wizards or the fanbase, because I don't think the long-time players will stand to be throttled in this way.

Podcast hints

I'm listening to the latest podcast to get a few more 4e hints.

The first thing that caught my ... err ... ear, was that multiclassing won't be as free as it used to. That means that Jack will be no more! Nooo!

I do agree, though, that multiclassing does require certain abilities to be offered in later levels, just to avoid the powergamers from taking 1 level in a class to get some abilities.


The XP change is a good thing. They mention that in 3e, you couldn't really go up or down a few levels in either direction for monster selection, and as a DM, I certainly found that. The static XP per creature, regardless of the player level, is a long-time coming. 3e XP was a big mistake.


Nothing else really struck me as that interesting. I'm not sure if that say something about me, about Noonan and Mearls, or about the player questions. Oh, wait, these are the same players that Ask Wizards about liches.

Baker's does'n' disappoint

I just finished reading Rich Baker's latest blog (to which I don't think I'm ready to link, for fear of alienating readers of this blog with the putrescent green of Gleemax), and while it doesn't give any facts, it does let us wonder about a few things.

Baker mentions that he considers moving his 3.5 character to a fighter instead of a warlord, because the fighter is a "defender", as his old 3.5 warblade would be. Again with the roles. What was the role of a warlord? I don't remember, but roles still get my hackles up.

It's good to see that heavy armor still affects the usefulness of Dexterity. Not that we had heard anything to the contrary, but this is a new version, and who knows what will change. I always liked this balance of AC-from-armor and AC-from-Dexterity, because it helped define the type of character you were creating, whether a tank, a sneak... hrm. These sound like roles.

The Toughness feat has changed. That's good, because while my first 3rd edition character had taken it, it was never taken again unless required by another feat or a prestige class. Dungeons & Dragons Online have made it useful, both with progressive benefits as well as from their enhancement system. Perhaps 4th edition is doing something similar?

Warlords are healers? Oh, right, there we go - warlords are "leaders", and I vaguely remember writing about that, and what we know of that role. It sounds like the powers from which you choose (the talent-trees or whatever we end up with) have a good range to let you customize your class, as he mentions he went with "mostly offensive powers" because their party had a cleric.

This Warlord also multiclasses as a Wizard. Wait, doesn't he wear heavy armor? Does that mean that arcane spell failure is gone? Is different? Or perhaps he chooses spells that don't have semantic components, to avoid the problem?

Okay, I'm wrong, there is an actual here-is-something-concrete-from-4e tidbit of information, about one of the Warlord powers, this Hammer and Anvil. I'm not sure I see the "logic" behind such a power; it grants an ally an immediate attack against the same target, but... why? Is it basically providing an attack of opportunity (if that still exists in 4e), by putting the foe off-guard? Is this something that the ally has to know the Warlord can do, to be ready for the sucker-punch? Being a "power", is it a spell-like/supernatural effect that "possesses" the ally and allows/forces them to attack, or at least magically lets them know that now is the time to attack? There was a feat in a splat book that I can't recall, that if TWO characters had the feat, they could use them in combination to do whatever-it-is the feat did, but that made sense, because both had that training, and knew how to work together on that maneuver. I just hope there's a game mechanic that explains how one character's power enables another character like this, such as the attack of opportunity explanation.

At the end of the post, he muses about whether he should have multiclassed the Wizard first, instead of the Warlord. 3rd edition has this dilemma when talking about the first level, since you get that extra boost of skill points -- and thus any multiclassed Rogue is remiss to not take their first level as Rogue -- but other than that, the order in which you take a level really just affects the character level to level, but not in the end (when you're a 5th-level X/5th-level Y). Since this playtest character of Baker's is 10th level, I wonder if he's saying that the end result would have worked out (noticeably) different if he had reversed the order, or if it was just the playability that might have been affected on the way to 10th level.

Lots of questions, but this is one of the few blog posts in a while that gave us something to think about, apart from how to filter out miniature blog posts automatically. Oh, and I guess I'll apologize for the blog's title.

Multi-classing monks. Why not?

Apparently Dave Noonan is not only reading our blog, but he's also monitoring our Google chat. That sly devil. ;-)

Just the other day Crwth and I briefly discussed monks and multi-classing which brought to light that my current character is pretty blatantly illegal. Oops. We are using the Unearthed Arcana's variant rules on gestalt characters, so that's my loophole. Yeah. That's it.

Anyways, in Dave's latest blog he discusses how the multi-classing restrictions applied to the monk and paladin classes were regrettably left in 3.0/3.5. I curse those playtesters who advised keeping that insane and pointless restriction in the game. I wish I could smack them around a little.

As Dave says, "The path of the paladin "requires a constant heart," but a cleric or a druid can multiclass freely? The dedication and study of a monk exceeds that of a wizard? Baloney."

I whole heartedly agree. It just doesn't make sense on any level. In fact, it's the main reason I've never played a 3.0/3.5 monk or paladin. Even when I've felt the urge to play a lawful character, I just can't get over the multi-class restrictions. Too bad because I had a really fun idea for a cowardly paladin/rogue. And a monk/rogue would be damn cool too.

Oh well. Maybe in 4e.

Damn playtesters.

A few thoughts on multi-classing and mob combat

The playtest reports are quickly becoming my favorite source of 4e info. This one by Rich Baker was especially good.

The first thing that caught my attention was the way Rich converted his 3e character to 4e. It was an unusual character to begin with and came out looking very different on paper, but still played the same way. That's a key distinction. I'll definitely be keeping that in mind when/if we convert our current party to the 4e ruleset next summer.

Then there's the bit on multi-classing. For starters, they've enabled multi-classing. Yay! Not that I was too worried about it being removed. But with talent trees as I understand them, I suspected multi-classing as it exists now might go the way of the bard. Still useful if done correctly or in small doses but with better or easier ways to get the same result.

And then there was this quote. "...then using our multiclass system to dip into some wizardly bits." (emphasis added by me)

Is it just the cherry picker in me that finds this to be an interesting choice of words? To be fair, the character is human, a race that in 3.5 has no problem with "dipping" into a second or even a third class. Still, it gives me hope that I'll be able to "dip into" other classes besides the core.

On the opposite end of the spectrum I dislike his talk of the "Swordmage" class. Maybe it's the addicted multi-classer, or because of the multi-classer in me, but I hate having two or more core classes melded into a ready to play, straight out of the cookie cutter class. I'd prefer a variety of core classes, each one with a unique angle or ability set, combined with a simple and easy to use multi-classing system. Don't melt classes together because all you get is a watered down "class" that steps on the toes of others. I'm looking at the Scout and any incarnation of the Swordmage/Bladedancer etc....

I just think that those melted classes take too much of the fun from multi-classing. Why play a complex mix of fighter/wizard when the Swordmage is all laid out for you? Don't muck around with min/maxing that Ranger/Rogue, just play a Scout. It's multi-classing for dummies. Fun!

No not really. At least it's no fun for me.

Rich's rollercoaster then climbs back up as the party encounters the room full of vampire minions and mummies. My first thought was that without a dedicated cleric they were doomed. In fact I fully expected the next paragraph to detail a full party wipe.

Instead I was elated to read how every character in the party managed to lay out some damage with area of effect abilities. Nice! Even the psion (Gawd I hate that psionic crap!) contributed.

Better yet, we were given a juicy look at the 'per encounter' and 'per day' abilities. I was worried that the 'per day' things would be the utility type of stuff. Well, Rich dispelled that concern with one very cool use of a scorching ray type of thing. Looked like a mix Scorching Ray with the line of effect of a lightning bolt. Awesome!

Finally, I thought that the entire encounter with a room full of undead was great. I love going toe to toe with one big high CR 'boss', but nothing beats a mob for hectic action. This playtest once again affirmed that 4e is going to streamline combat rules and encourage the DM to throw waves of baddies at the party. I just hope that Cleave and Whirlwind Attack will be among the feat choices.