I have to say I've heard bad things about 4e, mostly from people my age (20's) who are used to 3/3.5e. It may be hard to find people who have spent much time playing it. Best of luck to you.

i played adnd 2e, 3, and 3.5 i currently play star wars SE whichis similar. i might be able to answer questions.

4e is a completely new system. Don't know what starwars "se" is, but I know 4e is nothing like 3/3.5e.

Well for starters it's a little confusing figuring out how each attack hits an opponent. It seems like everything is a contested roll in which the monster and character roll against each other for the higestadjusted score. It just seems a bit over-complicated.

I've tried 4e, and IMHO 3.5 is superior.
However, 4e is much more simplified from 3.5, so if you're looking for something to pick up quickly, I suppose 4e is good for you. I won't make any more comments lest this turn into a 4e-rant.... >.>
Don't know if this is against site rules or what not (haven't read anything on it...) but I'll throw in a plug for a site. www.myth-weavers.com
It's an online PbP site with a pretty big 4e community; I'm sure you'll find someone to guide you through the learning process if you have questions. =)

I enjoy *playing* 4E, but running it as a DM is a complete headache. I've gone back to B/X D&D (using Labyrinth Lord), and I've been very happy with the results.

My advice is simple: Go back to 2nd Edition.

4th Edition sucks. I converted to 3rd Edition when it came out. A few months later we all decided 2nd Edition was much better (in particular we _hated_ the way priestly magic was handled) and retro-converted back to 2e.

When 4th Ed came out I borrowed the core books from a friend and tried to run a session using them. I hated it. Combat has been turned into this seperate 'D&D miniatures skirmish game' which just seems to be an excuse to get people to buy the crappy plastic D&D miniatures. Yuck. I mean, expressing distances in SQUARES instead of using actual units of measurement? Ugh.

If this is going to turn into a 4e-hate thread, I'll be sure to chime in.
Haven't tried 2e myself, though if I get my hands on a set of rules, I will be...

if i understand 4e correctly, there are no armor classes like you had in 3e and no AC like in 2e. the basis is still thats its a d20 + modifiers and you compare the result to the targets reflex defense. if the attack hits, then damage is dealt. its not a contested thing.

the purpose for the change to 4e was several fold: first, in 3e and 3.5, wizards were overpowered. i had an epic wizard whos DC's for spellcasting were so outrageous that most everything took a 20 to save. theyve tamed that down quite a bit and leveled out the classes. also, in earlier editions, as a DM, it took forever to roll up an NPC villian. now, time is cut from 20 minutes + down to maybe 5.

i liked 2e a lot but it was certainly not user friendly for newbies. the d20 system is much more stream lined and easier to learn and requires less 'heavy math', especially where THAC0's are concerned. i did like the wandering monster charts for wildernesses and dungeon encounters, though. i also like how if you had a lv 10 character, it took years to get that far and lv 20s were virtually unheard of unless you started playing when gary gygax was working the system.

i like 3rd and 3.5 more than 4 but i never took the time to try 4. my brother and his buddies did and they love it. i havent played dnd for about 6+ years and have intstead been playing star wars. i played dnd forever though.

I'm thinking that it's just very different. I do like the idea that you can deal damage and knock a character off it's feet or force it to back up. THat adds a little realism to the game. I've also noticed that dragons a frighteningly powerful (that's my idea for the campaign a green dragon is organizing a power structure kind of like a crime syndicate and the PC's are just dealing with the low level enforcers at the moment) It's beginning with goblins moving in on elven lands. I've noticed that they've borrowed a bunch from World of Warcraft.

In fact I'mgetting a grop of players who haven't played D&D, so I sold them on it as "World of Warcraft Unplugged".

I've both played and DMed 4E. I just ran a session earlier Sunday, in fact.

I think whether they like it will depend a lot on your group. My group likes the tactical challenge of combat (they're all board game players, so they enjoy the game-ist elements), and 4E combat delivers, hands-down. The problem for many is the areas in between combats. The rules are so combat-centric that players can get lost without them. I've settled on a lot more free-flow, lots of skill challenges, and making combat encounters shorter but sharper. Making a real world around them helps ground them, too.

I never played earlier D&D, so I can't comment on that, but if you have any questions about running 4E, Crazy Anglican, feel free to send them my way. I was doing what you're doing now just about a year ago. =]

one thing i love about dragons is that they can use spells and polymorph themselves into NPC's without anyone the wiser and simply polymorph back into dragon form when they want. its an element that you could easily throw into a campaign that they meet the dragon but dont realize it.

im currently play-testing a forum version of my star wars campaign which ive thoroughly enjoyed.

Just wanted to chime in here. I have been DMing my own 4E campaign since about September '09 and have played some one offs and a short campaign. I have also played 1st and 2nd editions and DMed 3.0/3.5.

I feel this is a much, much easier system to DM. Tiresias makes an excellent point about the mechanics and rulebooks being rather combat centric, but if the group does not want that there are plenty of ways to reduce the combat grind.

Feel free to ask me some questions if you wish.

Chris

@Tru Ninja: "3e and 3.5, wizards were overpowered"

Very true. In AD&D 2nd Ed, wizards could become very powerful, but for the first 4-5 levels they were vulnerable and this made playing a wizard a long-term challenge. 3e also made Clerics FAR too powerful. Access to EVERY Clerical spell? Whose stupid idea was that?

"I liked 2e a lot but it was certainly not user friendly for newbies"

If a whole group of new players, none of whom had ever played D&D before, picked up the 2nd Edition core rulebooks and tried to run a campaign from scratch, it could certainly be very hard at first, yes. But as long as the DM is experienced, no system should be daunting for a new player, because only the DM really needs to know the rules. It's not essential for the players to know the rules at all.


@ CrazyAnglican: "I'm thinking that it's just very different. I do like the idea that you can deal damage and knock a character off it's feet or force it to back up."

I've always just done that anyway, depending on the environment and circumstances.


"...so I sold them on it as "World of Warcraft Unplugged"..."

Nice. It's always useful to have something ready for when someone inevitably asks "so what is this "D&D" all about anyway?" I like to begin with a 'thought experiment' that pitches the questioner into actually playing D&D without realising it. Something like: "Ok, imagine you're a fierce Norse warrior on your way back home from a successful voyage. In rough seas, your longship hits a rock and sinks quickly. You manage to swim for shore, and after an exhausting 10 minutes in the cold, tossing sea you gratefully haul yourself onto a shingle beach. You're cold, wet, and gasping for breath. As you try to get your bearings, you hear an ominous howl coming from the woods near one end of the beach. WHAT WOULD YOU DO?"

... and the person generally either suggests a course of action or, if they're one of the clever ones, they ask questions - Can I see anyone else from my ship on the beach? Has anything useful like weapons or provisions been washed up from the wreck? etc etc.

This conversation goes on for 5 mintues or so, then I say: "So, remember you were asking what D&D was? Well, you've been playing it for the last 5 minutes!"


@ Tiresias: "Making a real world around them helps ground them, too."

Tiresias +1. The single most important thing about any campaign is making sure your campaign world/setting has depth, comes to life, and feels 'real' when the players are exploring it and interacting with its inhabitants. I spend hours working on the background to my world - the histories of nations, cities and families, the politics and relationships between states, communities, guilds, and major NPCs, and so on. I've spent hours working out the details of locations and NPCs my players may never meet, but it's worth it because the bits they do stumble across seem rich and vivid in detail, and it's easier for me, as DM, to hold their attention and make them feel involved.

I have been playing D&D for 15 years, DMed 2nd, 3rd, 3.5 and 4th edition.

When I tried 3rd edition, I was amazed at how much better it is to 2e, simplifying unnecessarily complicated things (THAC0?)

But after playing 4e, I refuse to go back to 3e. Its combat system is hedious compared to other better games. No challenge, completely unbalanced, terribly full of clunky rules.

As others said, though, 4e lacks tools to make non-combat encounters interesting. That is because 95% of all characters' abilities are combat oriented, so in conversations or investigations all characters feel the same except their skill value. At least 3e had tons of different abilities to interact with your environment.

The perfect D&D (to me) would be a mix of 4e combat with class features from 3e.

Since I'm experienced with 4e, pass me a message and I'll give you tips and advice

THAC0 isn't complicated.

The 3e system of adding a bonus to your die roll when aiming to beat a target 'difficulty' number is no less complex. Exactly the same number of calculations.

@Jamiet: Only backwards. Adding is always easier than deduction, especially if you include negative numbers and remembering if you're searching for a higher or a lower roll. It's not a math quiz of course, but it's unnecessarily complex.
Should I mention other unnecessarily complex rules from 2e? 5 saves, (including rod), multiclass confusion, dual class, non-weapon proficiencies, monsters' hit die (4+3 or less for sleep), percentile strength...
3e is an improvement to all these rules.

@jamie: its not complicated after youve been doing it for a while. the problems with thac0 came when players were going below and above 0. sometimes you add numbers, sometimes you subtract. my buddy played for years like i did and he was always asking me whether to subtract or add.

i loved the versitility with 2e though. there was a lot to it and more flexibility, albeit with less guidance. i loved the dragon armors that were spelled out, all the material they continued to put out and it ran for so long. plus, earning a character was really earning it. now with earlier editions, they pump out books like nobody's business, its hard to keep up, and players expect to gain a level every adventure.

i played one character for 5 years under 2e and he made it to lv 11 (although we would mix campaigns/DMs so i wasnt always playing that character). in 3e, i had a lv 35 in 2 years. also, since the inception of 3e, theyve been updating editions like mad. it got old mastering a system and the rules and then having to switch to a new edition.

I bought core 4e books a while ago, and I am trying to get my friends to give 4e a try since then (we are playing 3.5e for years together). I have DM-ed one 4e session, but my friends were simply not interested in playing 4e. Well, I tried... and for now I refuse to DM 3.5e, but I play as a PC. I am considering DMing Pathfinder though.

@KoBorg: Likewise, DMing 4e to my regular 3.5e group was a huge fail. They were always trying to use their powers in social encounters, to no avail.
4e went great with my board game group, though. The battles were very fun and balanced, your choices actually mattered

@Moodleaf -Board game group, you say... Perhaps I could try to interest the tabletop Warhammer crowd, they also play a lot of board games. Thanks for the idea.

@ Moonleaf: "3e is an improvement to all these rules..."

Perhaps, but the way it handles magic, and in particular clerical magic, turned me off from the start. It seems most of you agree with me about clerical magic, since no-one's disagreed as yet. However, to deal with your particular complaints:

"5 saves, (including rod)," - These sort of work, but the way they are handled now seems very outdated, yes.

"multiclass confusion," - I agree multi-classing is annoying, I don't use it in my game.

"non-weapon proficiencies," - these work ok. 3e offers little improvement - but see also what I said about the work I'm currently doing to adapt the thief skill system for this purpose.

"monsters' hit die" - not sure what you mean here. Hit dice just indicate how many dice you roll to determine the HP of the monster, and is also used as a handy shorthand for the relative strength of the monster. What's wrong with it?

"percentile strength" - percentile strength is a bit clunky, but it features very rarely in most games. I use method II for character generation so 18 scores are very rare. For NPCs you can just use STR 18 or 19. You can outlaw it for fighter PCs too. Having STR 18 is enough of an advantage.

@Jamiet: Non-weapon proficiencies was concidered an optional rule, but the game was too wild without it, so it can be concidered an improvement. Its problem was that if you didn't have one, you couldn't use it. 3e added the untrained use of a skill, that made sense.
It was fun to have a water-frightened barbarian who couldn't swim, but in most cases it was just silly.

The issue with monster's hitdice was that it wasn't representative of a monster's strength. Some monsters had low hp but powerful abilities, others had high hp but weak abilities. In the same time the second one would award more xp.

As you said, if you start using houserules you can fix many problems. I always played my games by the letter, since i'm sort of a rules lawyer (not a bad trait for a DM as long as you don't let it slow down the game), so I know all of the ruleset's problems.

But if you start using house rules to fix this and that, why not use a system that solves these issues? The stat system in 3e is brilliant, for example (10-11 +0, 12-13 +1 etc)

The cleric issue: I don't see why 2e cleric is better. Actually, he's very similar to the wizard in terms of memorization. He just memorizes more, from a short list, without having to write them in a spellbook first.
3e had the suberbly player-friendly rule of spontaneous casting. You don't need to memorize healing, you just swap a normal spell for a healing of that level! No more clerics memorizing just healing or being blamed when they don't memorize enough

On the balance part, we had a good discussion with a friend once. We agreed that in 2e, playing a cleric was almost often a chore. Most players wanted to play other cool stuff like rangers and rogues, but someone was forced to make a cleric since a party couldn't live without one. Even if one wanted to play a cleric, he often ended up a healbox while the other characters did cool stuff.
So in 3e, they decided to make the cleric the most powerful class, so that more people will want to play a cleric! Ironic, but it worked

I haven't had time to roleplay in a very long time. Personally I liked GURPS over AD&D 2e. The Warhammer fantasy roleplaying game was really good too, IMHO. And for Warhammer, I'm not talking about minatures, I'm talking about the roleplaying system they put out.

Anyone here ever play GURPS and/or still play it at all?

tabletop warhammer is fantastic

Bloodbowl is the best !

I am not familiar with the Warhammer RPG, but Warhammer Quest is probably the best game I've ever played

@Moonleaf: "The issue with monster's hitdice was that it wasn't representative of a monster's strength. Some monsters had low hp but powerful abilities, others had high hp but weak abilities. In the same time the second one would award more xp."

That's not correct. Abilities, spell use, special attacks, special defences and immunities, etc, are all taken into account when determining a creature's XP value in 2nd Ed.

"The cleric issue: I don't see why 2e cleric is better."

Because (a) they have a lot more character and (b) 2e clerics are reasonably balanced whereas 3e clerics are broken. In 2e, thanks to the limitations on access to spell spheres/domains, clerics of two different deities will have two very different rosters of spells to draw from, and those spells will bear some relevance to the type of deity they worship. This instantly makes them a lot more charaterful and interesting. Remember, it's a ROLE PLAYING game, not a boardgame, not a wargame. In 3e, any cleric can access ALL the clerical spells. That's totally stupid.


"On the balance part, we had a good discussion with a friend once. We agreed that in 2e, playing a cleric was almost often a chore. Most players wanted to play other cool stuff like rangers and rogues, but someone was forced to make a cleric since a party couldn't live without one. Even if one wanted to play a cleric, he often ended up a healbox while the other characters did cool stuff."

Wow. I can't explain why, but that's the opposite of my experience. In campaigns I've run, I have never had any shortage of people wanting to play clerics. I recently added a sixth player to our group, and I had to persuade him NOT to play a cleric, because 2 of the existing 5 PCs are clerics and I didn't want 50% of the party to be clerics. You need to ask your players why they constantly need healing - maybe they should organise themselves and approach combat with care and strategy, and not just charge frontally towards every group of monsters they see, thinking "it's ok if I get hurt, cuz the cleric will patch me up..."

Warhammer Quest was fun, but you take that and put a full roleplaying system around it and you've got the Warhammer Fantasy RPG.

Oh and I need to reply to this one:

"Non-weapon proficiencies was concidered [sic] an optional rule, but the game was too wild without it, so it can be concidered an improvement. Its problem was that if you didn't have one, you couldn't use it."

That's not a problem for a DM who knows what he's doing. Just take the most appropriate proficiency, and make the character roll a proficiency check based on the relevant stat, with a penalty. This works exactly like untrained use. Loads of DM's were doing this already, 3e just puts it into clear words, which is fine but hardly an innovation.

Warhammer quest is awful.

ive played GURPS. i liked the highly open-endedness of the system but never really got into it. ive played various white wolf games, cyber punk, dnd, star wars and a spattering of other systems including LARP's.

"Thats not a problem for DM who knows what hes doing"
+1 Jamie. ive played under some absolutely horrid GM's including some at gen con and i vowed never again to play under people like that. one guy even tried to get me to act out my move silently check. i didnt do it and so i failed the check. another guy i tried playing under once just gave up giving out xp for adventures and simply told the group how many levels they gained.

@Jamiet:
"In 2e, thanks to the limitations on access to spell spheres/domains, clerics of two different deities will have two very different rosters of spells to draw from, and those spells will bear some relevance to the type of deity they worship."
My memory is dusty, but I'm pretty sure that in the core books everyone could get everything, Perhaps you refer to a Complete Cleric rule? If I'm mistaken, then no problem. But again, it's an unnecessarily complex rule. Complex rules always give color and character (specialized wizard is a typical example), they make the game a better experience, but they make the game worse from a design view.

"Wow. I can't explain why, but that's the opposite of my experience."

What you told me is opposite from my experience, and I've played with lots different people. Maybe 2e works just for you and not most other people

About the hit dice thing, obviously my memory failed me.

"Warhammer quest is awful."

Would you sell me your copy, if you have one, then? *cheers and dances around*

@TruNinja:
Each one with their taste. Some other players might enjoy a DM like that, e.g. someone who didn't finish first grade and can't add up numbers with 3 digits.
It's a chemistry thing, much like the actors and director of a movie

@Moonleaf: "My memory is dusty, but I'm pretty sure that in the core books everyone could get everything, Perhaps you refer to a Complete Cleric rule? If I'm mistaken, then no problem."

Nope, I'm afraid you're mistaken. Clerical spell access being limited by sphere/domain, depending on deity, is in the 2nd Ed PHB and DMG.

" "Warhammer quest is awful." "

"Would you sell me your copy, if you have one, then?"

Sorry. You're about 6 years too late, I already sold it. Seriously though it was a terrible game. GW actually had pretentions of it being a successor to WFRP, but it was so dull and linear...

@Icymind: "BloodBowl is the best!"

Icymind +1. Blood Bowl is a fabulous game, and it won the awards to prove it. One of the best things GW have ever come up with.

@Jamiet: Warhammer Quest is probably the best DM-less dungeon-crawling game there is. A copy in good condition costs around 300$ these days

@ Moonleaf: You have your opinion on Warhammer Quest, and I have mine. I played it several times, and found it one of the most boring experiences of my life. Advanced Heroquest was better.

mmm hero quest. havent played that game in a looooong time. if i owned it, though, id sell it. a good condition board and game components are worth a fortune.

I have two copies of the original Hero Quest game one of which is mint, and one of which is a bit beaten up, plus most of the supplements. I use the minis in my D&D games though, so they're not for sale.

Interesting that there's so much loathing for the "tell them when they level" approach. My group has often found keeping track of XP - and most other bookkeeping, really - to distract from their suspension of disbelief and thus the fun of the game. I guess they're different sorts of players than you guys.

That's one of the things I liked about the Warhammer Fantasy RPG. At least the first edition that I played. There weren't levels. As you gained experience you could trade it in for skills and stats which would also open up new career paths. If you were a common thug and wanted to become a burglar, there were skills you needed to pick up first. And then when you wanted to move onto being an assassin there were more prerequisites.

None of this *poof*, you reached a magical point where you have more hitpoints and are more powerful. A much more gradual but steady gain. GURPS was also similar in the slow but steady gain of power rather than all these level plateaus.

the only things i like about 4th edition over 3.5 is the skill choices, why would you spend one of maybe 4 skill points on jump? Also I like the campaign books that you can buy. I tried the ruleset for 4th edition though and hated it so I have sort of given up on D and D.
If you like tabletop games you should try warhammer. That is great.

@Alderian - yes, the advancement system in WFRP was really innovative for the time and remains one of the best features of the game.