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BALANCE: I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how 4th Edition is “less broken” or “more balanced” than 3rd Edition. Personally, I doubt it. When you look at the poor statistical analysis being applied to problems like the 15-minute advenuturing day and skill challenges, I see no reason to assume that the system is particularly robust. I mean, if the designers couldn’t be bothered to calculate the most basic probabilities of their core mechanics, why would I assume they spent any time balancing the complex interactions between different powers and abilities?

On top of that, 4th Edition is so fundamentally different from previous editions of rhe game that the legacy of balance instilled into the system by 30+ years of playtesting no longer exists. Meanwhile, the playtesting for 4th Edition was significantly reduced in scope from the rigorous playtesting that 3rd Edition was subjected to.

So we have a game with (a) less playtesting and (b) demonstrated sloppiness in the design of its most basic elements. And you’re telling me it’s “more balanced” just because the designers told you that they “fixed the math”? C’mon. Within mere days of the game being released, the designers had already publicly admitted that they’d actually screwed up the math instead of fixing it.

It’s true that, as I write this just a few short weeks after the game was released, the character optimization boards have not yet ripped Pun-Pun size holes in the game. But it’s not like Pun-Pun cropped up in September 2000, either. (It took four years, a revision of the core rulebooks, and multiple supplements.)

EASE OF PREP:  I’ve also heard a lot of people talking about how easy it is for DMs to prep adventures in 4th Edition. This is one of those areas where I’m fully willing to admit that my experience may be extremely different from that of other people playing the game, but frankly I can’t figure out what they’re talking about. Particularly since they seem to be primarily talking about the ease of prepping stat blocks.

For one thing, prepping stat blocks has never taken up more than about 5% of my time when prepping an adventure. It’s such a minuscule portion of the process that any time savings in that area is almost beyond irrelevant.

For another thing, with the exception of wizards (who had the extra hassle of trying to prep spellbooks), the amount of time spent prepping NPCs in 4th Edition has actually increased compared to 3rd Edition.Why? Because the number of decision points (due to powers) has increased for every single non-caster class (and has remained largely unchanged for the caster classes).

Nor is it any easier to create entirely new monsters or tweak existing monster stat blocks in 4th Edition.

However, one thing I do like in 4th Edition is the multitude of stat blocks in the Monster Manual. It really is a huge time saver to have a half dozen different stat blocks for orcs that I can immediately plug ‘n play into an adventure, instead of having to build every orc by hand from the basic stat block for the race. It’s a design choice that I liked in the later 3rd Edition Monster Manuals and it’s just as valuable here.

Unfortunately, the Monster Manual as a whole is probably one of the worst ever published for the game. Descriptive text has been pared down to a bare minimum… and often less than a bare minimum. It would be tempting to blame this lack of descriptive text on the multiple stat blocks, but that’s just not the case: Monster Manual V for 3rd Edition, for example, featured multiple stat blocks without gutting the descriptive text.

One example of this would be the guulvorg. First appearing in Monster Manual V, guulvorgs were recently created by goblin transmuters experimenting upon worg stock. Huge creatures with a tail of bulbous bone and blood which literally boils in their veins (and scorches those who wound them), the guulvorgs were given enough detail that they stood out as a unique variant of the standard worg.

In 4th Edition, on the other hand, guulvorgs “are often encountered in pairs (a male and a female). They are capable of bearing Large riders into battle.”

That’s the entirety of the creature’s description in the Monster Manual. And this is a pattern which is repeated over and over again throughout the book. If you already know what these monsters are, then the book has a high utility. If you aren’t already familiar with older editions of the game, however, the book is nothing more than a collection of extremely bland stat blocks.

This contributes heavily to the feeling that 4th Edition is nothing more than a tactical miniatures game.

And the dissociated mechanics in the Monster Manual are just actively painful to read. I think my “favorite” of the moment is the cyclops who has better depth perception because he only has one eye.

… I wish to God I was making that up:

EVIL EYE (minor; at will)
Range sight; the cyclops impaler gains a +2 bonus to ranged attacks made against the target. It can designate only one target with its evil eye at a time.

The Evil Eye is also an example of another 4th Edition design principle that I just can’t wrap my head around: Racial traits that aren’t.

In the case of the cyclops, every single cyclops stat block has an Evil Eye ability listed… but they’re all different. One grants a free basic melee attack; another grants a bonus to ranged attacks; another lets the cyclops shift 2 squares instead of 1; another applies a penalty to a target’s speed; and so forth. There’s no common thread to these abilities except that they’re all called “Evil Eye”.

Continued…

Playtesting 4th Edition – Part 5: Dissociated Mechanics Playtesting 4th Edition – Part 6: Skill Challenges Playtesting 4th Edition – Compiled