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I stand by my contention that 4e and Pathfinder are equally valuable follow-ups to 3.5. Both of them try to solve 3.5 problems like dead levels, not enough abilities, etc. Both of them make your players feel good by giving them cool abilities - and then balance it out by handing the monsters pretty solid abilities too. I'm all in favor of making the players feel more awesome.
4e's more generic approach - where my barbarian isn't that different in power from your wizard from some gamer playing a warlord halfway across the planet - means it's this great game to pick up and just start playing. It's so GM friendly that you can quickly generate scenarios that are balanced and one of my favorite parts is the vague level advancement rule, rather than having to carefully total up experience. Another favorite part is the way you can plug feats into clerics' faith - now you have a quick and easy way to give your guy something seriously cool and Tyrsman like, or awesomely Aset, or whatever. Want to quickly figure out an adversary? Huh, well, let's just crack the DMG, assign some more abilities, and boom, you have your second toughest encounter for the evening. Want to hand a player something awesome to reflect that their dwarf is a lycanthrope hunter, unlike other dwarves? Make a feat for it, or offer 'em an unusual power.
Generic means that 4e kinda craps out for long term campaigns. I mean what's the point of making Beowulf the brave, Scyld Scaefing's son, if after all that arm-wrenching and meadhalling and channel-swimming, the rules basically mean that his collection of feats and powers make him functionally about equal to Radagast the Brown over there and all the time? It's like having a concert where nobody every gets a solo. You notice that it's possible to have a pretty good concert with no drum or guitar solo... and using that metaphor, think about the bass player and keyboardist who never got a chance to do a solo in the first place. But then, think about all the times you've played D&D in your life.
How many long campaigns were you in where you built a character up from nowhere?
How often did you regret making what didn't seem like a terrible choice of feat or multiclass, and the next few sessions it came back to haunt you and make you feel really ineffective and useless, not exactly good emotions to have in what's supposed to be your fun hobby?
How often have you played one-shot games?
To be fair I think that Pathfinder's fluff is way better than 4e's fluff. 4e hands out some really cool setting ideas about the Plane of Shadow and the Feywild and theoretically I should be raving about how fantastic 4e's world is, but ultimately I can't seem to get past the feeling that most adventures take place in a less-characterful version of the Forgotten Realms. Whereas my impression of Paizo is that here are people who don't just like but love all these different pulp fiction elements, and Golarion is a little like Greyhawk made more characterful by mixing in Lovecraft, Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, King Kong, all these other great things.
Frankly I really like having two different ways of "doing" D&D out there, reflecting the different ways you can play D&D games - one really good for stand up games or short things, and the other really good for long-term character building. It's really hard to get enthused about D&D Next, but since it's an odd-numbered D&D edition, maybe it'll prove to be really good like even-numbered Trek films.
That's all I wanted to say.
4e's more generic approach - where my barbarian isn't that different in power from your wizard from some gamer playing a warlord halfway across the planet - means it's this great game to pick up and just start playing. It's so GM friendly that you can quickly generate scenarios that are balanced and one of my favorite parts is the vague level advancement rule, rather than having to carefully total up experience. Another favorite part is the way you can plug feats into clerics' faith - now you have a quick and easy way to give your guy something seriously cool and Tyrsman like, or awesomely Aset, or whatever. Want to quickly figure out an adversary? Huh, well, let's just crack the DMG, assign some more abilities, and boom, you have your second toughest encounter for the evening. Want to hand a player something awesome to reflect that their dwarf is a lycanthrope hunter, unlike other dwarves? Make a feat for it, or offer 'em an unusual power.
Generic means that 4e kinda craps out for long term campaigns. I mean what's the point of making Beowulf the brave, Scyld Scaefing's son, if after all that arm-wrenching and meadhalling and channel-swimming, the rules basically mean that his collection of feats and powers make him functionally about equal to Radagast the Brown over there and all the time? It's like having a concert where nobody every gets a solo. You notice that it's possible to have a pretty good concert with no drum or guitar solo... and using that metaphor, think about the bass player and keyboardist who never got a chance to do a solo in the first place. But then, think about all the times you've played D&D in your life.
How many long campaigns were you in where you built a character up from nowhere?
How often did you regret making what didn't seem like a terrible choice of feat or multiclass, and the next few sessions it came back to haunt you and make you feel really ineffective and useless, not exactly good emotions to have in what's supposed to be your fun hobby?
How often have you played one-shot games?
To be fair I think that Pathfinder's fluff is way better than 4e's fluff. 4e hands out some really cool setting ideas about the Plane of Shadow and the Feywild and theoretically I should be raving about how fantastic 4e's world is, but ultimately I can't seem to get past the feeling that most adventures take place in a less-characterful version of the Forgotten Realms. Whereas my impression of Paizo is that here are people who don't just like but love all these different pulp fiction elements, and Golarion is a little like Greyhawk made more characterful by mixing in Lovecraft, Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, King Kong, all these other great things.
Frankly I really like having two different ways of "doing" D&D out there, reflecting the different ways you can play D&D games - one really good for stand up games or short things, and the other really good for long-term character building. It's really hard to get enthused about D&D Next, but since it's an odd-numbered D&D edition, maybe it'll prove to be really good like even-numbered Trek films.
That's all I wanted to say.