Small chat on 4e.

Just a little chat about 4e. Note that neither one of us have fully read and played the damn thing.

Karizma: =/ I wanna try 4e.
Karizma: But first, brb~
Tea Weasel: :/
Karizma: back
Karizma: WHAT?
Karizma: What have we heard inherently BAD about 4e?
Tea Weasel: Too. Damned. Restrictive.
Karizma: Restrictive in what sense?
Tea Weasel: Everything feels the same with a slightly different flavor.
Tea Weasel: Erm.
Tea Weasel: Well, look at 3.5.
Tea Weasel: They were coming from a game where your character could spiral off in whatever direction you chose.
Tea Weasel: Then it's not THIS IS YOUR CLASS AND ONLY YOUR CLASS AND EVEN MULTICLASSING DOES LITTLE.
Karizma: But think about the WAY it restricts you. It restricts you in the sense of combat functionality. But 4e is built on team-based combat. Look at every other combat system and you get a feeling of individuals in combat. With 4e, the entire rule structure is set up in the assumption of party-based combat. And it works well.
Tea Weasel: Yes, but you're going from something utterly free to something utterly restrictive. And some of it feels quite... lame in how they fixed it.
Tea Weasel: The fighter fix basically became "Look, we have spells, but not!" same with the rogue. And everything else, really.
Tea Weasel: Spellcasters had the spotlight, so rather than balancing everything, they made that the new standard of power.
Karizma: Spellcasters had the spotlight because they had a variety of tools to choose from to affect combat. Fighters have golf-clubs of weapons, as you said.
Tea Weasel: Spellcasters had the spotlight because the tail-end of 3.5 gave them game breaking casting loops. X3
Tea Weasel: But really, why have a "I can only swing my sword this way, stab that way, or shoot an arrow like this once per day" thing?
Karizma: I'm not saying D&D is for me, or that I think it's the best roleplaying game (or even a good one), but I'm VERY curious to see how well it works, given that all accounts of 4e combats that I've read are simple enough for children to understand, quick enough to be interesting, and producing a tactical-based environment that I think most games leave purely up to the GM to replicate.
Tea Weasel: The classes have minor, minor schticks now in the "I do more damage, I tank better, etc etc" roles. But. They're not distinct enough.
Tea Weasel: They went from nigh-infinitely wide to painfully narrow.
Karizma: But what was the USE of wide? The "anyone can do anything" leaves the players in a kind of "fend for thyself" position. By cornering people into limited combat roles, you give the party the understanding that cooperation is A Good Thing (TM).
Tea Weasel: Yes, but then you're falling into the "You All Play The Same Character" problem. Which I utterly despise, since it puts the cuffs on what used to be a lot of creativity.
Karizma: Does it? By taking away the mechanical detail, you leave even more room for in-character aesthetic detail. Furthermore, is mechanical individuality that important? You will be different enough from your fellow party members. That's all that matters.

HARP is a wonderfully flexible system where anyone can be anything, but in combat because anyone can do anything, I'm seeing everyone being TOO similar. If I forced people into roles, I would see more unique combat.
Karizma: By allowing everyone access to everything, you get a party of only slightly different individuals.
Tea Weasel: Of course. You get the RP stuff. But you can only go so far before the rules say "no". No elemental mages, no life-and-death clerics. Fighter-mages have no distinct flavor.
Karizma: Those are things that I feel can easily be created by additional content. Elemental mages simply need to replace their spells with more elemental spells. Cleric spells could also be further expanded. But the mechanics themselves offer--from what I have read--a good basis for fun party-based combat. In the end, the combat system SHOULD be strong for the thrill and fear of death to be fun. It's the one problem I've been running into in HARP, unfortunately.
Karizma: Don't get me wrong, I do have some issues with 4e. "Warlord"? Tieflings?! But from all the research I have done so far, I see more good things of 4e's strongpoint--its combat--than I see negative things about what it's done to the more "roleplaying" side of the game, which I think is fine, since--given a grognardian standpoint--I don't need rules to roleplay.
Tea Weasel: SW maintains smooth, versatile combat and creation without this recipe-card ability nonsense. It's just an unneeded compromise. XP
Karizma: It can be smooth, but isn't it still based on the fundamental principle that combat rules are a resolution for attacking and dealing damage? 4e seems to be the first game system to take into account the fact that a party should work together, and by making certain roles have functions that--when cooperating--become strong parts rewards players for teamwork, and makes combat slightly more tactical and fun.
Tea Weasel: I don't like what it did, so there. :v
Karizma: XP You don't have to. I don't like it that much either. However, I want to see what it did right, because I think it's something that most other RPGs could learn from.
Karizma: Hell, if I can, I'd LOVE to impliment things into HARP.
Tea Weasel: Oh, everything has the ability to do something right. It's just that I don't like how vanilla the classes feel in comparison to each other.
Karizma: In what way exactly? Like two Fighters are the same, or are you saying that there's really no difference between a Fighter and a Mage?
Karizma: --Sorry, Wizard x3
Tea Weasel: Well, there are some essentials. But mechanically, a lot of it boils down to "You have X at will abilities, X per encounter, X daily." For all classes. There is nearly no reason to "just attack."
Tea Weasel: The problem there too is that if everyone just chains "Special Moves" again and again, they become not-so-special.
Karizma: Looking at the Fighter At-Will abilities, These are sort of options for replacing "Just Attack". Sure Strike makes it easy to hit, but it does absolutely minimal damage. Useful if you need to just make contact. Cleave is a kind of attack if you are up against two adjacent opponents. I think this is better than saying "A Fighter sits there and repeatedly Attacks until the mob falls down." It offers variable options for a Fighter to perform.
Tea Weasel: They took one book from 3.5 and turned it into an entire system.
Karizma: And this doesn't look like that bad of a system :p.
Tea Weasel: The Book of Nine Swords. Trumped most classes by giving melee kind of what 4e has now.
Tea Weasel: Eh.
Tea Weasel: I don't like the changes. I really don't.
Karizma: And that's fine x3. I have a desire to play it myself, as it looks like a decent system that could be fun.