I think that I made the right choice. I agree with everything that you’ve said in this post. And frankly, 4E feels to me more like ‘real’ D&D than 3.x ever did.

Scott, I was hoping to discuss something with you. Would you please drop me an email? Thanks.

@Scott: I’m very interested in your Rituals houserules. It’s one of the areas that I feel WotC made a significant improvement but maybe didn’t go far enough.

@Wyatt: Yeah. I’m planning a post on some rituals houserules, but I find cutting the costs and the casting time makes them more useful and still not broken.

On the other hand, I do like the long casting times for the more powerful effects. It helps to explain why the heroes generally manage to arrive when the intended sacrifices are still alive, rather than X rounds after the spell is already cast. A 1-hour or 6-hour casting time gives a lot more leeway for that sort of dramatic arrival than a 5-rounds casting time would.

@Svelt: I don’t really see 4e as much less lethal… but then, I generally only kill my PCs when they’ve done something stupid to bring it on themselves. (Granted, continuing to fight when they should be trying to escape, surrender, or otherwise avoid it is one major area of stupidity at times.)

The rest is fair enough, though. It’s all about preference.

If you want to stick with D&D, I’d suggest going retro with the Cyclopedia or 1/2e (or one of the numerous retroclones). Otherwise, something new might be in order. Savage Worlds is pretty easy to pick up, inexpensive, and a lot of the RPG blog network seems to like it a lot. Star Wars Saga Edition gets pretty good reviews, and is a fun sort of 3/4e hybrid… although it does have some tactical combat (as does Pathfinder). Maybe try something in a different genre, like Mutants & Masterminds or Call of Cthulhu? Maybe try out a free RPG like Risus?

There’s a lot of stuff out there to look over and choose from.

1) Lessening of the perceived risk to the players. As a DM, it is difficult to kill players – look at the average damage output for a monster and compare it to the player’s hitpoints. I started house ruling higher damage output, and that helped, but everything seems nerfed, especially when you take into account the healing output.

2) Tactical turn based combat was fun…for a while. I feel like i’ve spent a year playing Final Fantasy Tactics – great game, but I want something else now.

3) So much effort has been spent on balancing the player classes that they do seem kinda homogenous. Certainly, none of the creative sparks fly that used to when you thought about something like “Sorceror/Monk” or “Barbarian/Druid”.

So I’m thinking of giving pathfinder a try, without tactical combat. Any other suggestions?

And yeah, I agree with you on Rituals especially. God I wish Wizard’s would lighten up on them, it’s like you see a fear of them or trying to stuff them in a closet in the first few books, then in the next few ones they’re begrudgingly inviting them to the party but they have to sit in that corner, over there. Don’t touch anything either.
.-= Wyatt´s last blog: A Punishment Ill Fit (II) =-.

Like you, I love 4e’s hackability and rate it second only to my much cherished Rules Cyclopedia as being the Best D&D Ever, and I see closer similarities in the two editions than I do in any other edition before or since. Even 4e’s Tier system shares echoes with Classic D&D’s Lord level and shift of gears from localised to regional and national adventures around 9th level.

Good stuff!