D&D - Was 4th Edition meant to be a MMO?

[xSamhainx]

I've had a well-built 3.5 Druid totally destroy my encounters and lead the group in almost every way. They can be surprisingly powerful characters, made even moreso if you start allowing rampant use of splatbooks which i unknowingly OK'd without much forethought

 

[fadedc]

Well first off, using another measurement insted of feet has been true of many of the older versions of D&D as well. Previous editions used inches as their primary unit of measurement and distance was meant to be measured on a board with tape. Somehow I don't think 1e had a "video game mentality" because of this.

As for nigh invincible characters, that makes me wonder if you've actually played 4th edition. Yes a 1st level character in 4e might have 2x the hit points of his 3.x counterpart. Monsters also hit about twice as hard. Meanwhile mid to high level characters actually have significantly lower hit points in 4e. 3.x characters are far more overpowered then 4.0.

As for shardminds though, yeah they are pretty silly. But the game contains like 40 different races and it's intended for the DM to choose which ones do and do not exist in his game world.

When it comes to the video game mentality, how about dumbing down the main unit of measure to "squares", as if players cannot comprehend that one square is 5'? Shardminds?? Fuckin lame. It's stuff like that which helps to turn a bad taste in the mouth to utter dislike.

I'm sorry, 4E tries to take the power away from the DM as much as possible and make a bunch of nigh-invincible video game characters plowing thru monsters as easily and efficiently as possible. The only thing missing is being able to hotkey your at will/encounter/daily powers.

 

[DArtagnan]

The simplification of character building and ultra-streamlining of the overall flow ruined 4th Edition for me and those I play with.

We're all big fans of the 3-3.5 class system, and we all prefer the "mess" over the streamlined alternative known as 4th Edition.

That said, I think 4th Edition is fine for a sort of boardgame approach to D&D - especially for people who don't like to invest themselves in rules and character building.

I'd like to call it the casual version of D&D - much like how digital gaming has evolved.

Casual meaning the level of investment required to play and understand, not necessarily the investment required to play WELL.

 

[booboo]

We've also shifted to Pathfinder (PF) - we looked at 4Ed and all of my group (independenltly) said 'no thank you'. PF allows all classes to shine (imho) without homogenizing everything by giving each class 'supernatural' powers (4 Ed). I kept my party in Faerun (no post-hoc magic anomaly required, thank you) and did a PF conversion - had to wing it to some extent, but works well otherwise. We've now reached epic levels (after years), which is a bit problematic - PF has no epic rule set and the old DnD 3.0 epic level rules were somehat messed up. Still deciding how to proceed, while I design my first high level world-smiting encounters…(!) I have very little expectation from a WOTC 5th Ed…. and no, I do not want to play a cRPG on a desktop. There are some part so fmy gaming life I'd like to keep computer-free.