by Waterd103 » Thu Mar 29, 2012 3:51 am
Well It depends on how you look at the game. Of course for some it's not an important thing. As you may know I like to play ironman runs and I find the high variance those two things offer to be distasteful. Critical damage doubled is too much and may end a run early on , even if you played very well. The same goes for Death threshold. Im happy that in KOTC at least unconscious character are removed from the battle and thus not prone to AOE Damage (and all the death checks and stabilized and such options removed). But I feel lategame the only -10HP threshold makes True resurrection, too much core of the experience. I don't like that much because true resurrection is a spell I don't like, as is extremely OP, but it seems in KOTC it's balanced around it. (at the point I don't think an ironman run without true resurrection is reasonable at all).
Another thing I like about 4th edition is that non-caster classes have been given more interesting combat options. Which I think is a plus. Maybe i don't like the healing surge mechanic though. But at least it makes the "I need a cleric" not so much of a must. Which I like because i hate clerics, ha.
Also It makes more classes balanced around a combat, which in CRPG is relevant since really that's what most of the challenge comes from. Yourself accepted that having a thief would be not of much sense in KOTC or CRPG in general, and I agree, so having them more combat oriented is a good thing.
Of course, you can just do the proper modifications or addons if you want, and being something of 3.75 version. But I don't know how much allowed you are to do that. And you make the problem that someone that already knows 3.5 edition to have to learn more stuff.
Also I think 4th edition focus more on the focus of AOE attacks, shapes, even on melee fighters. Which adds depth in a way that i think it's good. Im not pro"More complexity=good". In fact adding complexity is basically a bad thing. But sometimes it's a reasonable cost to add depth. In this case i think it's worth it. I think fighters don't have much options, and most of the decisions in combat that define the result of the battle are made by how you use your casters. This has been a common problem in 3.5. Of course it seems you had no problems on adding invented feats and what not. And the rules proposed for KOTC2 are getting away from 3.5.
So maybe it's ok to stay on 3.5 and we can talk about adding changes that you may agree or not , even if they are not 3.5 at all (like the two changes about critical strike and death threshold)