Wednesday Knights Blog

In reading the 4E PH for the first time, changes with three four components jumped out at me: (1) Skills; (2) Movement; (3) Hit Points; and (4) Powers. The biggest of these changes deals with the powers and hit points.

Skills: As I explained in my review of Star Wars Saga Edition, the skills have been changed significantly. The list of skills has been reduced to 17 different skills. Some of these make perfect sense. For example, you no longer have hide and move silently. You have stealth. This is something that my group moved to long ago. Similarly, you no longer have spot, listen, and search. Instead, you have perception. This is another great improvement. On the other hand, Thievery seems to be a bit all encompassing in that it includes disable trap, open lock, pick pocket, and sleight of hand.

Additionally, you no longer have ranks in skills. You are either trained in a skill or you aren’t. If you are trained, you receive a +5 on your skill check. Your skill check is d20 + 1/2 your level + your ability score modifier + 5 (if trained). Also, unless you take a feat, you get no more skills than the ones you start with at character generation.

In sum, for the most part, I like the combing of the skills. However, I am not crazy about the +5 or +0. one of the things I liked about the 3E system is the ability to customize your character based upon the skills that you chose as you advance in levels.

Movement: The change with movement that I do not like is that the system has changed from movement in feet to movement in squares. Sure you can do the conversion of 5 feet per square, but changing it to squares really ties you to a map board. We typically use a map board for combat scenes. However, the new system pretty much requires the use of a map board.

From my perspective, this just seems to be a bit of the dumbing down of the system, so that you need only count squares.

Hit Points: You will have significantly more hit points in this system that you had before. For example, at first level, a cleric starts with 12 + constitution score, a fighter starts with 15 + constitution score, and a wizard starts with 10 + constitution score. This means that you will actually have the ability to fight things at first level. Similarly, when you advance in levels, you gain a set number of hit points, rather than rolling a hit die. For example, cleric gets 5 hit points per level, a fighter gets 6 hits points per level, and a wizard gets 4 hit points per level.

Hack/ did a interesting study on the evolution of the fighter in the various editions of D&D. He describes his experiment as follows:

The ground rules followed for this comparison were: Human Fighter with the stats that would be expected from using the standard stat generation method for a given edition. Equipment would be long sword, shield, and the best armor that average starting money would allow. After generating the fighters for each edition, they would then be paired up against an unending stream of Goblins (also from that edition), one at a time, to see how effective they were. These combats were run at least 1,000 times each by a Javascript simulator program.

Based upon these simulations, in the original D&D, a fighter could kill 2.7 goblins. In 3E he could kill 10.1, In 4E he can kill 23.4. Check out this chart to see all of the results.

I think a larger part of this change is a result of the additional hit points at first level. I am certainly in favor of having a few more hit points at first level. I just question whether these amounts are a little too much.

Powers: This is where the real change comes in. Every class gains certain powers that can be used. Some powers (at will powers) can be used any number of times. Others, such as encounter powers (used only once per encounter) and daily powers (used once per day) have more limited uses.

Rather than having spells, the magical classes just have powers that act like spells did in prior versions. In addition, all classes have special powers. No longer will a fighter just hit someone with a sword. Instead, he will strike with a Tide of Iron, which allows him to push his opponent back with each hit, or he will cleave, which means that if he hits, he also does damage equal to his strenght modified to an adjacent enemy.

If you have ever played Earthdawn, the concept of powers in 4E reminds me a lot of Earthdawn talents. Significantly, anyone can swing a sword, but special heroes have advantages that ordinary people do not.

I am reserving judgment on how this works out until I have an opportunity to actually play the game a little. However, I will say that I am not crazy with what has been done to spellcasters. It seems, at least to me, that wizards aren’t as powerful or useful as they were in 3E.

Other Thoughts: Another thing that jumped out at me when I was reading the book was the fact that multiclassing is essentially nonexistent. You can take a feat that allows you to take a power from a different class. However, the multiclassing that was available in 3E is simply not available under these rules. I definately don’t like this.

Additionally, these rules have essentially done away with prestige classes. Again, this is not something that I like. I think the prestige classes went a long way toward allowing people to customize their characters. I am sure that the argument is that you can now customize your character by using the powers rather than using prestige classes. I think I prefer the prestige class route, however.

I like what has been done to the various races in that all of the demihumans get bonuses to two attributes. Also, the demihumans have a racial power.

Finally, I like the fact that the fortitutde, reflex, and will defenses are based upon the better of two attributes. For example, fortitude is based upon strength or constitution, reflex is based upon dexterity or intelligence, and will is based upon wisdom or charisma.

In sum, based upon reading through the book, it seems like there are some good and bad things about 4E. I am looking forward to playing it once to see how it works out in actual play.