Things that don't make sense

Can you think of things in 4e that just don't make sense? Post them here!
Let's see what we can come up with!

Something that seems ridiculous to me is that you can coup de grace with a net or a whip, but not with a garrote.

The five alignment system.
Why are there only five alignments?
Without Chaotic Good/Chaotic Neutral (depending on your interpretation) we would have no Han Solo!
What do they have against Han Solo?

Funny that there are already threads dissing 4E and this forum is relatively new...

Yeah, I agree, it felt to me like most of the interesting alignments were removed, and the less interesting remained. Fortunately, it is relatively easy to fix that.

Yeah, get rid of alignment entirely. It's so binary and just dumb in general. People are not black and white, people are grey.

Yeah the 5 alignments look strange after so many years of 9 alignments...but then I only ever cared about 3 of them anyway. (Good, Neutral, and Evil.) Also, alignment is vestigial in 4e, so none of it matters. Write whatever you want in the alignment entry on your character sheet, if it makes you happy. I write nothing.

What doesn't make sense to me is the wizard. It has the same spell book fluff it's had since OD&D, and yet a wizard can't learn new spells from looted spell books or personal research. One can always hand-wave it as "It's a magic spell book, it just works like that," but I don't find that satisfying at all. I'd rather ignore the default fluff and think of the wizard as a kind of Int-based sorcerer.

Well, that's another thing about 4e, fluff is very easily changed.

Galstaff wrote:

The five alignment system.
Why are there only five alignments?
Without Chaotic Good/Chaotic Neutral (depending on your interpretation) we would have no Han Solo!
What do they have against Han Solo?

Funny that there are already threads dissing 4E and this forum is relatively new...

As of right now I strictly moderate this forum. The main reason for me to create this forum was because of the 4th Edition haters. If you feel that any topic is just begging to start a Flame War then file a report. I will be glad to look at it. But remember constructive criticism isn't blatant hatred. And as long as people are being cool and civil then there is no problem.

- The Admin

Edit: By the way, I like the username.

Admin wrote:

As of right now I strictly moderate this forum. The main reason for me to create this forum was because of the 4th Edition haters. If you feel that any topic is just begging to start a Flame War then file a report. I will be glad to look at it. But remember constructive criticism isn't blatant hatred. And as long as people are being cool and civil then there is no problem.

- The Admin

Edit: By the way, I like the username.

It's not bad. I just find it amusing. I love 4E, although there are some bizarre, er, quirks. I wonder how people are going to treat Next after the official release...

Thanks! IF ONLY THE ELF HAD CAST MORDENKAINEN'S MAGICAL WATCHDOG!!

Tequila Sunrise wrote:

Yeah the 5 alignments look strange after so many years of 9 alignments...but then I only ever cared about 3 of them anyway. (Good, Neutral, and Evil.) Also, alignment is vestigial in 4e, so none of it matters. Write whatever you want in the alignment entry on your character sheet, if it makes you happy. I write nothing.

What doesn't make sense to me is the wizard. It has the same spell book fluff it's had since OD&D, and yet a wizard can't learn new spells from looted spell books or personal research. One can always hand-wave it as "It's a magic spell book, it just works like that," but I don't find that satisfying at all. I'd rather ignore the default fluff and think of the wizard as a kind of Int-based sorcerer.

1 Rituals are spells *wizards get them auto.
2 When I level up you know where those spells came from? I am in charge of the flavor of where they come from... To me battle magic arent easy to master such that I build up a huge collection but by level 8 I might have with a generous DM 40 or 80 rituals who knows perhaps.

OP, We can find thousands of posts of people actively working to see my favorite game as nonsense they seem solely capable of using their imagination to the end of mockery and fighting against that is not why I come here.

You now have a mark against you as far as i am concerned... prove me wrong.

Garthanos wrote:

Tequila Sunrise wrote:

What doesn't make sense to me is the wizard. It has the same spell book fluff it's had since OD&D, and yet a wizard can't learn new spells from looted spell books or personal research. One can always hand-wave it as "It's a magic spell book, it just works like that," but I don't find that satisfying at all. I'd rather ignore the default fluff and think of the wizard as a kind of Int-based sorcerer.

1 Rituals are spells *wizards get them auto.
2 When I level up you know where those spells came from? I am in charge of the flavor of where they come from... To me battle magic arent easy to master such that I build up a huge collection but by level 8 I might have with a generous DM 40 or 80 rituals who knows perhaps.

Like I said, you can hand-wave the spell book oddity however you want, but it's not at all satisfying to me.

Garthanos wrote:

OP, We can find thousands of posts of people actively working to see my favorite game as nonsense they seem solely capable of using their imagination to the end of mockery and fighting against that is not why I come here.

You now have a mark against you as far as i am concerned...  prove me wrong.

Whoa, Garth! To all appearances, itaav is a fellow 4e fan, and so far this thread has been a friendly discussion among friends. I know that the edition warriors elsewhere have gotten many of us paranoid, but I'd like to give itaav the benefit of the doubt.

No, I like 4e too, this tread is just for some polite criticism.

5 alignments was a reaction to the tediousness of the 9 alignments.  And 2/3 (maybe more) of all characters were chaotic good or chaotic neutral so they could do whatever they want anyway.  In 4e they could just be good or unaligned and be done with it.  It's a simplification for a painful system that over classified PC's needlessly.  
Like others here, I just don't use alignment because why, but if I had to, I'd take the 5 over the 9 any day of the week.
One of my big issues is that the assumption is that characters only worship one god in a polytheistic society, where as more realistically they would worship the majority of them.  Most temples should have shrines to multiple gods, evil ones included, and possibly saint-like/exarch figures. Most priests should just be priests - not priests of some specific god.  Exarchs may be a different matter.  But this isn't just a 4e problem, its more D&D all together.
Fortunately, you can just change flavor and be on with it.
Scaling math on skills and DC's can be a little bit of a suspension of disbelief breaker as you move to higher levels.
TjD

Tequila Sunrise wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

Tequila Sunrise wrote:

What doesn't make sense to me is the wizard. It has the same spell book fluff it's had since OD&D, and yet a wizard can't learn new spells from looted spell books or personal research. One can always hand-wave it as "It's a magic spell book, it just works like that," but I don't find that satisfying at all. I'd rather ignore the default fluff and think of the wizard as a kind of Int-based sorcerer.

1 Rituals are spells *wizards get them auto.
2 When I level up you know where those spells came from? I am in charge of the flavor of where they come from... To me battle magic arent easy to master such that I build up a huge collection but by level 8 I might have with a generous DM 40 or 80 rituals who knows perhaps.

Like I said, you can hand-wave the spell book oddity however you want, but it's not at all satisfying to me.

Every ability gained via leveling ... is hand-waved its endemic to a level based system. How did you learn learn those three languages due to taking the feat for lingust? over night in your sleep? Could be cool if you are picturing a reincarnating hero.
That said.
I do like naturalistic training and acquisition of abilities unfortunately level based systems are generally meh at it. RuneQuest even back in the 70s handled learning better on many fronts (though it wasnt perfect).

The likes of Rituals and Martial Practices (and Practices not so Martial) + Grand Master Training ... could theoretically be leveraged on a broad scale to enable everyone to learn there various stunts/powers/feats from teachers and sources with time and money. (mayhaps include my idea of Karma points in there) and experience points/level might just advance what you already know. I have to say such a system might have some commonality with 1e in some ways.

itaav wrote:

No, I like 4e too, this tread is just for some polite criticism.

Sorry if I over-react...and go Clint-Eastwood on you - every game has silly elements we are a bunch of grown ups playing "lets pretend" its bound to be that way.. there has been quite a bit of humorous things made where we poke fun at ourselves over it. The edition wars however made this stuff in to viciousness and something other than polite.

Perhaps you could fix the language problem by telling your DM ahead of time what language you're going to learn, and then before you learn the language getting the ability to speak in it with a penalty to the appropriate ability/social skill check (Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, or if none fit just Charisma or in some situations perhaps even Wisdom).  The closer you get to mastering the language, the smaller the penalty.

Or you only know how to speak it because you bought Ye Olde Rosetta Stone, and by that I mean THE ACTUAL ROSETTA STONE  

If someone thinks that this should be deleted, feel free to do so, I didn't mean to start an edition wars, but if this becomes one, then something should be done about it.

Galstaff wrote:

Perhaps you could fix the language problem by telling your DM ahead of time what language you're going to learn, and then before you learn the language getting the ability to speak in it with a penalty to the appropriate ability/social skill check (Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, or if none fit just Charisma or in some situations perhaps even Wisdom).  The closer you get to mastering the language, the smaller the penalty.

Or you only know how to speak it because you bought Ye Olde Rosetta Stone, and by that I mean THE ACTUAL ROSETTA STONE  

Mayhaps you get the idea.

Part of the point is that none of the abilities you get levelling up are necessarily just popping in to existence... but YOU can indeed picture your character as being a reincarnating king who discovers he speaks the language of earlier selves or perhaps its my barbarian who channels ancestors in a fight who unlocks an ancestral memory.

The ability to decide how and where ability comes from can be looked on as a boon.

itaav wrote:

If someone thinks that this should be deleted, feel free to do so, I didn't mean to start an edition wars, but if this becomes one, then something should be done about it.

Something which might not make sense is somebody like me assuming this thread is issuing a call to attack or that even if it sounds like one .. that it will be answered as such.OK? I would rather be nicer than that.

Garthanos wrote:

Tequila Sunrise wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

Tequila Sunrise wrote:

What doesn't make sense to me is the wizard. It has the same spell book fluff it's had since OD&D, and yet a wizard can't learn new spells from looted spell books or personal research. One can always hand-wave it as "It's a magic spell book, it just works like that," but I don't find that satisfying at all. I'd rather ignore the default fluff and think of the wizard as a kind of Int-based sorcerer.

1 Rituals are spells *wizards get them auto.
2 When I level up you know where those spells came from? I am in charge of the flavor of where they come from... To me battle magic arent easy to master such that I build up a huge collection but by level 8 I might have with a generous DM 40 or 80 rituals who knows perhaps.

Like I said, you can hand-wave the spell book oddity however you want, but it's not at all satisfying to me.

Every ability gained via leveling ... is hand-waved its endemic to a level based system. How did you learn learn those three languages due to taking the feat for lingust? over night in your sleep? Could be cool if you are picturing a reincarnating hero.

Most level-related stuff doesn't bother me one bit. (Though to be honest, I've never taken Linguist.)

Kinda like how some people have a problem with martial dailies, but not martial encounters. I myself don't understand how it's possible to be okay with one but not the other. But that's how people feel.

Tequila Sunrise wrote:

Yeah the 5 alignments look strange after so many years of 9 alignments...but then I only ever cared about 3 of them anyway. (Good, Neutral, and Evil.) Also, alignment is vestigial in 4e, so none of it matters. Write whatever you want in the alignment entry on your character sheet, if it makes you happy. I write nothing.

I personally prefer no alignment. But if I must have one I prefer the old Law, Neutral, and Chaos system.

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

Tequila Sunrise wrote:

Yeah the 5 alignments look strange after so many years of 9 alignments...but then I only ever cared about 3 of them anyway. (Good, Neutral, and Evil.) Also, alignment is vestigial in 4e, so none of it matters. Write whatever you want in the alignment entry on your character sheet, if it makes you happy. I write nothing.

I personally prefer no alignment. But if I must have one I prefer the old Law, Neutral, and Chaos system.

I've heard that Three Hearts and Three Lions is the progenitor of D&D's original three alignments, and I'd like to read it someday.

But having started gaming during 2e, the law-chaos axis always felt like a tacked-on spectrum. While I can readily grasp good and evil, law and chaos feel quirky and vague. Even though I know it came first.

Michael Moorcock did a pretty interesting sell on the Law Chaos axis in the Elric/Eternal Champion Novels.

I dunno.  I know a lot of people dislike alignment, but it actually really helps me when designing characters, even the bizarre way 4E does (I guess I should say "did" now that 4E is yesterday's jam) it.  I guess 4E's alignment system isn't that bad considering that it really does not matter mechanically what your alignment is, so you can write anything you want there.  In fact, when I first got my books and started helping some (now uninterested, unfortunately) friends design their PCs, they pretty much ALL wanted to be Chaotic.  Usually Chaotic Evil, but sometimes Chaotic Neutral, and as a (horribly inexperienced, unfamiliar with the rules) DM I didn't care at all.

Tequila Sunrise wrote:

But having started gaming during 2e, the law-chaos axis always felt like a tacked-on spectrum. While I can readily grasp good and evil, law and chaos feel quirky and vague. Even though I know it came first. Wink

I thought I had a good grasp on the law-chaos axis, until I saw this guy's video, who gives quite an interpretation to the 9 alignments. (Warning: some of his videos contain strong language, don't remember if this one does or not)

Yeah, I got tired of listening the that guy like 4 minutes in...
Ask 10 gamers about alignment and you'll get 15 explanations, and all of them are wrong for your game.
The truth is that even "evil" people would never recognize them self as "evil", unless they want to portray an image or have a mental disorder. Law and chaos is subjective to the individual.
I need a big shovel and waders just to get through it.
Much easier to just drop it and give your PCs/NPC/monsters real motivations/personality trait and fit their actions within those. I'm so glad 4E drop all mechanics around alignment to make it easier.
TjD