Ewen Cluney thinks 4th Edition was your fault

[Drachasor]

This is Legend. I don't like it. Too bland.

That's a problem with Legend, not the concept in general.

[Mithril Leaf]

That's a problem with Legend, not the concept in general.

I would request a mechanically better interpretation of the concept than Legend, since that was it's main goal and it was created by a large number of very experienced and knowledgeable game developers.

[Drachasor]

I would request a mechanically better interpretation of the concept than Legend, since that was it's main goal and it was created by a large number of very experienced and knowledgeable game developers.

Legend had an additional goal of trying to be as generic and flavorless as possible, which is why it seems so generic and flavorless.

[avr]

Legend's fine; if it had the established player base of any edition of D&D I think I'd be happy playing it.

It doesn't. Finding players or DMs for it who you can get on with is searching for needles in a very, very big haystack.

[Deophaun]

As a player and a DM I would consider that one of the big weaknesses of 4e.

It's both. If you like simulationism, 3.5 is the better system. I find it overrated in a tabletop RPG, often getting in the way of the actual game, but I see the appeal of it.

Monsters and PCs are just different. A DM already has the ability to do whatever he wants with the world

Ability to do whatever he wants provided he has the time and effort to do it. 4e drastically cuts down on the amount of effort needed, meaning the DM can do more in the same amount of time.

Being able to play monsters (at least in theory, practice often falls flat) means that you gain a whole new play dynamic in many ways.

Except here's the thing: you can play monsters in 4e. You want to be a bugbear? Be a bugbear. You want to be a dragon? Be a dragon. You want to be beholder? Be a beholder. How can this be, even if there is no dragon or beholder player race? Because bugbear, dragon, and beholder are fluff concepts, and fluff in 4e is infinitely mutable, because 4e is not simulationist. Pick whatever race and class works best for your concept, and then present your character however you want.

If you want to play a game where you can do anything (which is the main appeal of a DM run game rather than a computer run game)

Answered above: you are just as free to do whatever you want in 4e as you are in 3.5. In fact, more so, because the fluff restrictions are gone. You want to be a fighter and a baker? Good news! You don't have to blow all of your 2+Dump Stat skill points into Profession (baker). You just say you are a baker. You'll have a shop in the Nentir Vale.

Now, you want to know how much gold you make from the shop? Well, 4e says you don't, because, again, it doesn't even bother to pretend to be simulationist. Double edged sword. If it bugs you, 4e isn't for you. If it doesn't, 4e's perfect.

[Mithril Leaf]

Except here's the thing: you can play monsters in 4e. You want to be a bugbear? Be a bugbear. You want to be a dragon? Be a dragon. You want to be beholder? Be a beholder. How can this be, even if there is no dragon or beholder player race? Because bugbear, dragon, and beholder are fluff concepts, and fluff in 4e is infinitely mutable, because 4e is not simulationist. Pick whatever race and class works best for your concept, and then present your character however you want.

Answered above: you are just as free to do whatever you want in 4e as you are in 3.5. In fact, more so, because the fluff restrictions are gone. You want to be a fighter and a baker? Good news! You don't have to blow all of your 2+Dump Stat skill points into Profession (baker). You just say you are a baker. You'll have a shop in the Nentir Vale.

Except for a beholder is already a thing. A baker is already a thing. If I say I'm beholder do I get the eye rays and floating and hunger for gnomes? I could say a sword swing is an eye ray, but does it do things that an eye ray does? If you are allowed to refluff mechanical differences, why not just play a free form RPG?

[The Trickster]

A lot of DMs are not very good at house rules. 3.X designers apparently didn't realize that DMs in general are not game designers. How many times do we see, just on the forums, examples of house rules that are stupid, short-sighted, and make the game worse? Balance is a complicated thing, so it is not trivial to tweak things.

Rather than make a game that's terribly flawed and exploitable, you could just design one that supports multiple power levels out of the box. A game designed this way would indicate the power levels and what that means to the DM and players. Then you don't foist a bunch of work on the community whilst making the game more difficult on people that don't frequent message boards.

But but but...if the game was perfectly balanced, what would people talk about here?

[Deophaun]

Except for a beholder is already a thing. A baker is already a thing. If I say I'm beholder do I get the eye rays and floating and hunger for gnomes? I could say a sword swing is an eye ray, but does it do things that an eye ray does?

Sure. It disintegrates the target, because that's what you want it to do. It's going to do the same mechanical damage as a sword swing, and it's going to have the same range as a sword swing (melee), because, after all, those are the mechanics you chose. But when describing how you killed the ogre, we're not saying that you decapitate it with a mighty swing, but rather you blast it and its skull turns to ash. What a frost ray? A fire ray? A charm ray? A dispelling ray? Choose powers that do that. There are plenty of classes that can cover those bases easily enough.

The names of powers, feats, equipment, and monsters in 4e is irrelevant as far as the game world is concerned. Players are actually encouraged to change them as they see fit (not in consultation with the DM, it's something they're told to do right in the PHB). A death-themed wizard isn't using Magic Missile, but Skull Strike or something more creative. Works exactly the same as the Magic Missile power listed in the book, but the game world neither knows nor cares about that.

[Mithril Leaf]

Sure. It disintegrates the target, because that's what you want it to do. It's going to do the same mechanical damage as a sword swing, and it's going to have the same range as a sword swing (melee), because, after all, those are the mechanics you chose. But when describing how you killed the ogre, we're not saying that you decapitate it with a mighty swing, but rather you blast it and its skull turns to ash. What a frost ray? A fire ray? A charm ray? A dispelling ray? Choose powers that do that. There are plenty of classes that can cover those bases easily enough.

Disintegration is notably different from dead in many games, I know this is the case in 3.5 at least.

[Kelb_Panthera]

claiming that the game is broken because they can delibrerately misinterpret the rules to bizzarre effect.

The game is terribly unbalanced within the rules as written, intended, and as they make sense. Without making even one mechanically questionable choice the power and versatility of a core only wizard or cleric so completely outstrips the power and versatility of a monk or fighter that it's borderline absurd. That's not necessarily "broken" but it's unquestionably and undeniably true when you look at the system with any serious degree of objectivity and logic.

There -are- a few pieces that outright don't quite work either as intended or even as makes sense as they're written and -require- a DM to make some interpretation before their actual function can be determined (gate, ironheart surge, interrupted drowning, starvation and thirst, etc).

The simple solution to fix most of the truly broken stuff in 3.5 was to just release more errata. It's no one's fault that the writer of a particular ability wasn't able to predict how it would coexist with every other single ability in the game. Lack of support is what caused 3.5 to be so unbalanced.

With you right up until that last sentence. The game was so inherently unbalanced at its release that no amount of errata that didn't all but outright replace the core rules could've saved it.

[Deophaun]

Disintegration is notably different from dead in many games, I know this is the case in 3.5 at least.

The disintegrate ray of an Eye Tyrant in 4e does a large amount of upfront damage, plus a lesser amount of ongoing damage. That is it. Not hard to find an Encounter or Daily power that can do the same in a Player class.

Again, it's not simulationist. We aren't wondering what happens to the equipment of a person who has been disintegrated, or even whether there is enough to identify the remains. If you have a problem with it, 4e isn't for you.

[HaikenEdge]

The disintegrate ray of an Eye Tyrant in 4e does a large amount of upfront damage, plus a lesser amount of ongoing damage. That is it. Not hard to find an Encounter or Daily power that can do the same in a Player class.

Again, it's not simulationist. We aren't wondering what happens to the equipment of a person who has been disintegrated, or even whether there is enough to identify the remains. If you have a problem with it, 4e isn't for you.

So, your argument is basically, "This isn't a science, it's an art, so if the facts aren't there, just use your imagination and pretend they are."?

[Drachasor]

Again, it's not simulationist. We aren't wondering what happens to the equipment of a person who has been disintegrated, or even whether there is enough to identify the remains. If you have a problem with it, 4e isn't for you.

People overuse "simulationist". Basic versimilitude is not simulationist anymore than the existence of a plot, characters having goals, or having personality is narrativism. Dice rolls don't make it gamism either.

[Dalebert]

All you have to do is trick yourself into believing that your character is somehow different than every other character and you might be able to trick yourself into having fun!

EDIT: Apparently needs to be blue.

[Deophaun]

So, your argument is basically, "This isn't a science, it's an art, so if the facts aren't there, just use your imagination and pretend they are."?

You use the blue sarcasm color, but yes, I would say, not sarcastically, that is exactly the argument. Some people hate that, and I can understand why. But I enjoy it.

For those who don't, WotC did release this.

[Deophaun]

People overuse "simulationist". Basic versimilitude is not simulationist anymore than the existence of a plot, characters having goals, or having personality is narrativism. Dice rolls don't make it gamism either.

"Verisimilitude" is subjective, and thus not something you can measure. I find plenty of verisimilitude in 4e, and 3.5 often breaks mine because of the inseparability of its fluff and mechanics. But I can't say one or the other therefore has more verisimilitude than the other, because that's a statement of fact and I only have my opinion.

Simulationism, however, can be measured to an extent, or at least objectively discussed.

[Alent]

You use the blue sarcasm color, but yes, I would say, not sarcastically, that is exactly the argument. Some people hate that, and I can understand why. But I enjoy it.

For those who don't, WotC did release this.

All I see is Stormwind Fallacy, the novel, am I supposed to see an actual solution for people who dislike 4e, or just an insult that they can't even bother to thinly veil?

I actually think 4th Edition isn't so much "an MMO" but rather, something of a repeating, asynchronous "simultaneous evolution" fluke.

The MMO mentions earlier are inaccurate, but grounded in MMOs having the same problem as D&D. (Largely because most MMOs are Fantasy Heartbreakers by nature.)

If you trace MMOs back to their origin, you arrive at text based online OD&D/AD&D clones that lead into a copycat system overhaul Everquest (3.0) then vanilla WoW and the era of WoW clones (3.5). Most of the "defining" MMOs were similar to 3.5 in that they were rife with tier inequality and RAW abuses, and then the homogenization trend came (4). As you can see, you have, at the same points on the timeline, the same results.

The difference being that since MMO subscriptions were threatened by tier inequality problems, they had to act sooner than D&D did. Being fundamentally the same games, when the various MMO companies and WotC looked to solve their tier inequality problems they didn't need to look and copy from anything, the easiest solution is rather self evident- what you got was class homogenization and massive simplification of possible options.

The big question is, will the attempt to move away from the failed homogenization efforts work in both "next" games?

[Brookshw]

All I see is Stormwind Fallacy, the novel, am I supposed to see an actual solution for people who dislike 4e, or just an insult that they can't even bother to thinly veil?

Really? I see something dated April 1st.

[MeeposFire]

As a player and a DM I would consider that one of the big weaknesses of 4e. Monsters and PCs are just different. A DM already has the ability to do whatever he wants with the world, a PC having more access to world building and monster resources usually makes my gaming experience richer. Being able to play monsters (at least in theory, practice often falls flat) means that you gain a whole new play dynamic in many ways. If you want to play a game where you can do anything (which is the main appeal of a DM run game rather than a computer run game) why wouldn't you want the players to be able to be monsters?

Considering that 3e is the only edition where monsters work like PCs and that after playing every last version of D&D from basic-4e I will say that this is one area that I REALLY HATE about 3e. It sounds nice as it makes things sound even but in the end it is often overly complicated, overly slow, and ponderous to design all enemies, npcs, and everything else by PC rules. I have found that it is easier to use the rules in earlier and later editions to make enemies and NPCs while being quicker and more often better in combat.


Oddly enough your complaint is unfounded about monsters as characters. If there was one area where 4e design can actually work it is monster classes. As bad as the 4e vampire is compared to most classes it still operates at the baseline performance levels (it just cannot go much higher than that though thankfully it doesn't get much lower either) and it is the most playable vampire in any edition of D&D ever from level 1 up. If you want to play a monster a character race is easy to make up if it does not exist. If it isn't a race that needs more than just a couple of racial stats (like the vampire) you can create a class progression for it (sort of like savage species progressions except that it could work). Since you are creating from the ground up you can add class abilities or powers directly into the progression if they are im[important to the character. As you level you gain more powerful abilities related to the monster.

A beholder class (for race it would be limited to a couple of beholder sub races or something for variety if you want) could be made with a full progression. As you gain levels you gain additional power most likely in the form of eye rays giving you more types of attacks.


Personally I think the biggest problem in 4e was that it was such a new direction and they only had the chance to do a play test and then run with it. For that it does quite well but I think it could have used some revisions. Unlike in 3e this is less towards trying to make things work better mechanically but instead to make things more versatile in the system. For instance later products tried to give many classes in class basic attacks. I would continue that trend but would also base most encounter powers off of them when appropriate. In many cases this would lead to the powers being mostly the same as they are now but since they are based off of your basic attack you can trade it between classes better and in your mind you see it as sa different technique using your weapon rather than an entire seperate power.

[Drachasor]

"Verisimilitude" is subjective, and thus not something you can measure. I find plenty of verisimilitude in 4e, and 3.5 often breaks mine because of the inseparability of its fluff and mechanics. But I can't say one or the other therefore has more verisimilitude than the other, because that's a statement of fact and I only have my opinion.

Simulationism, however, can be measured to an extent, or at least objectively discussed.

Questions like "what happens to the equipment when a creature is disintegrated" matter as far as verisimilitude is concerned, especially in a loot-based game.

And "simulationism" refers to GNS theory, and in that sense it does not mean what you seem to think it means.

I don't see how you are drawing a meaningful distinction between two words that mean the same thing. Please explain this.

[Deophaun]

Questions like "what happens to the equipment when a creature is disintegrated" matter as far as verisimilitude is concerned, especially in a loot-based game.

If the entire creature is disintegrated, and the items stay behind, then you might have a problem.

If a dime-sized hole in the creature's skull is disintegrated, and the items remain, you probably have no problem.

Thus, in 4e, versimilitude is fully in the domain of the DM, not the system. The system just gives you a collection of numbers. It's the DM that determines how those numbers look.

[Dalebert]

The flavor of the game depends on more than fluff. Disintegrate is by nature an all-or-nothing effect that leaves a cloud of dust behind. A disintegrate that pokes a hole is a sword. It isn't scary in the same way. A necromancer who's magic missiles look like skulls isn't scary. Your tactics for dealing with him are no different versus if he's draining your life force in a manner that debilitates you in some way that's different from losing hit points to MM. You can change the colors and textures of the same spell or the same combat maneuver, but if it doesn't affect mechanics, it doesn't affect the game much. Without enough mechanics to reflect the difference of abilities, the strategies aren't going to change much from combat to combat and it's going to get monotonous.

Simplifying and homogenizing may be helpful to a point but they got carried away in 4.0. WoW did it too during the time I was away. It became more accessible to a broader number of players, but for folks who had been around since old WoW, it felt like busy-work.

[Knaight]

Regarding the arguments that simplified math is somehow an MMO style thing - this is hogwash. MMOs have computers to crunch the math, and it shows. I've yet to see an item which, say, multiplies damage for a certain attack by (1.0345*)^n, where n is some sort of character trait that is likely not an integer. With the occasional exception - e.g. Phoenix Command - RPGs tend to stick to integers, with the occasional number which is half or 1/4 of an integer.

I would request a mechanically better interpretation of the concept than Legend, since that was it's main goal and it was created by a large number of very experienced and knowledgeable game developers.

There's Mutants and Masterminds, which explicitly has you set a power level. There's GURPS (and a whole bunch of other games), where you create characters by spending points and alter the point values. So on and so forth. Legend did nothing new.

*This is an arbitrary number, illustrative mostly because of the significant figures involved.

[Alent]

Really? I see something dated April 1st.

I just didn't like the joke. I probably shouldn't have snarked at it, but long days will do that to your judgment.

...Without enough mechanics to reflect the difference of abilities, the strategies aren't going to change much from combat to combat and it's going to get monotonous.

Simplifying and homogenizing may be helpful to a point but they got carried away in 4.0. WoW did it too during the time I was away. It became more accessible to a broader number of players, but for folks who had been around since old WoW, it felt like busy-work.

I think the big issue here is that once you start trying to ensure equality without a story model in mind, you easily end up in a feedback loop until both options are mathematically and mechanically identical.

From a game sense, this is great. From a story sense, a story about ten identical copies of Aquaman solving a story underwater where they fight identical copies of Aquaman is boring.

[Drachasor]

If the entire creature is disintegrated, and the items stay behind, then you might have a problem.

If a dime-sized hole in the creature's skull is disintegrated, and the items remain, you probably have no problem.

Thus, in 4e, versimilitude is fully in the domain of the DM, not the system. The system just gives you a collection of numbers. It's the DM that determines how those numbers look.

There's more to 4E than just numbers. Heck, there's more to it than just numbers and tags. But its inherent verisimilitude is very weak, since the most reasonable interpretation of the system is that in models particular encounters without regard to how other encounters might look. What had 30 hit points at level 1 might only have 1 hit point at level 5.

And depending on one person to ensure verisimilitude is always a tricky thing, because no one is ever 100% consistent and even being reasonably consistent is an awful lot of work. It's actually nice when the system shoulders more of the burden, imho.

The flavor of the game depends on more than fluff. Disintegrate is by nature an all-or-nothing effect that leaves a cloud of dust behind. A disintegrate that pokes a hole is a sword. It isn't scary in the same way. A necromancer who's magic missiles look like skulls isn't scary. Your tactics for dealing with him are no different versus if he's draining your life force in a manner that debilitates you in some way that's different from losing hit points to MM. You can change the colors and textures of the same spell or the same combat maneuver, but if it doesn't affect mechanics, it doesn't affect the game much. Without enough mechanics to reflect the difference of abilities, the strategies aren't going to change much from combat to combat and it's going to get monotonous.

Simplifying and homogenizing may be helpful to a point but they got carried away in 4.0. WoW did it too during the time I was away. It became more accessible to a broader number of players, but for folks who had been around since old WoW, it felt like busy-work.

To be fair, WoW was alway busy work. It's just that busy work looks less like busy work when it is novel. Homogenization of classes didn't really change this.

However, more to the overall point, balance doesn't require homogenization, nor does some general homogenization lead to everything being balanced necessarily. Homogenization is often a quick and dirty way to work towards balance.

That said 3.5 actually demonstrates that you can have many different mechanics that are balanced with each other. Sure as a whole 3.X is not balanced, but there ARE many classes that are close enough to equal in power -- start looking a T3 classes for instance, and narrow things down a bit from there. Many of these sets of classes have very different mechanics -- For instance the Wildshape Ranger, Warblade, and Swordsage...or perhaps Bard, Factotum, Duskblade, Psychic Warrior. And this is in a system severely happened by the overpowering mechanic of spells. (And these examples are rather hampered by my lack of experience with Binders, Incarnates, etc).

That said, 4E does show that you can have similar mechanics for classes that yield very different playstyles. That's not something we should ignore, even if 4E has other problems. Similarly, it also had a pretty nice system for adjudicating creative ideas in a balanced way.

I think the big issue here is that once you start trying to ensure equality without a story model in mind, you easily end up in a feedback loop until both options are mathematically and mechanically identical.

From a game sense, this is great. From a story sense, a story about ten identical copies of Aquaman solving a story underwater where they fight identical copies of Aquaman is boring.

Hmm, depends on what you mean by a "story model" here. You can certainly strive to have many different strategies to be mathematically equal in terms long-term effect (e.g. things are balanced overall) without making sure each option is identical or nearly so. However, you do need to have, as a goal, to make sure you are providing different mechanics on purpose.

Of course, your overall game design can hamper this. If we want to talk about WoW, its entire raid encounter design has so many requirements that it leaves very little room for class variability.

[Vanitas]

This is Legend. I don't like it. Too bland.

Finally someone that agrees with me.

[Gemini476]

From a game sense, this is great. From a story sense, a story about ten identical copies of Aquaman solving a story underwater where they fight identical copies of Aquaman is boring.

Seeing as Aquaman fighting Aquaman underwater actually means "Army of sea critters fighting army of sea critters underwater while the generals duke it out with superstrength and water magic", I fail to see how that is boring.
Well, other than the massive amount of rolls you get unless you don't actually simulate the background combat.

Really, fighting Aquaman underwater is just about the least boring place to do so in.


...Also, two different Fighters in 4E are probably more different than two different Fighters in 2E, for instance. And in the specific case of 4E, monsters are pretty different from PCs. So that's an additional thing there, I suppose.
The Aquaman analogy kind of breaks down pretty quickly.

[Ansem]

People like that should be burned for such heretical statements.
Besides:

As someone with limited experience with 3.x and very extensive experience with 4E, whenever I looked through 3.5 books I was always struck by just how much wound up being familiar.

Already means it has no real credibility for me.

[georgie_leech]

Except for a beholder is already a thing. A baker is already a thing. If I say I'm beholder do I get the eye rays and floating and hunger for gnomes?

Sure, let's take a look at this. What are the interesting bits of a beholder? The eye rays, the floating, the antimagic, and the power? The last is the easiest; if you want a higher power level, play a game at a higher level. For a lark though, let's see how much we can capture at low levels. In terms of the rays, those can all be represented by Arcane attacks, preferably single target if we want to maintain the "ray" aspect. For our purposes, we're going to be fluffing all the different powers as coming from your Beholder abilities rather than learned abilities; we're treating level ups as unlocking further Beholder power, not in learning more advanced Wizard techniques.

Explaining the entire build would require you be familiar with the mechanics for it to make much sense, so I'll just sum that up: Crunchwise, this character will be a Hybrid Warlock (Fey Pact)|Wizard with a Multiclass feat for Druid. This multiclass is different from 3.X multiclassing, and it takes two feats and level 7 or higher to get what we need: the lowest level power (Charm Beast) that let's us dominate a single target at range, to represent the two Charm rays.

Disintegrate, as mentioned earlier in the thread, works differently; SoD's are generally not existent in 4th, as it isn't fun for a single flubbed role to completely kill a character. It can be represented by high untypless damage, which we can get with a number of powers. Taking an upper bound of level 8 (our current minimum), we can use Eldritch Rain, which, despite the name, actually shoots rays of magic energy that deal 2d8+Cha+Int typeless damage at level 3, with an extra 1d6 (or d8 with a feat) if the target is Cursed (a class feature that boosts damage). At levels higher than 19 (4th has a level range of 1-30), we can use the actual Disintegrate Wizard spell, which deals a sizable chunk of typeless damage with a good amount of ongoing damage that lasts until the target makes two saving throws (the first only reduces the ongoing damage).

The Fear can be represented by a Warlock Power with the Fear keyword. There's a First level Warlock Daily that does just that; it even temporarily immobilises the target in fear, and gives them a penalty to their Will.

At low levels, Finger of Death and Flesh to Stone are just not level-appropriate, so we need to go to a higher level to get similar effects, as well as considering that save-or-die's just aren't a thing in 4th ed. To represent the petrification we have a level 15 Warlock power that keeps the target from getting standard actions, which keeps most enemies from attacking at all; this can be imagined as a partial petrification, prohibiting the careful movements needed to attack. More than simply doing damage though, I agree that the FoD ray needs to do more than necrotic damage to maintain the same kind of power. Enter Wrath of Accamar, a level 19 power that deals a decent chunk of necrotic damage, more ongoing necrotic damage, and for the duration of the DoT the target can't take actions (or be affected by other creatures), effectively taking them out of the fight temporarily.

Inflict Moderate Wounds is any of a number of Necrotic powers, but let's use a Level 1 Wizard spell (Ray of Enfeeblement) that deals Necrotic damage and Weakens the target to boot.

Sleep is likewise covered by a Wizard Power, namely Sleep.

Slow, strangely enough, is better modeled by he Daze status effect, but both it and the actual 4th Edition Slow condition are available in abundance on the Warlock Power list.

Telekinesis has a couple of functions, so it depends on which you want to emulate. The first is the most difficult to emulate with the current class selection, though if you trade out the Druid multiclass with Psion, Telekinetic Lift is exactly that. The Combat Maneuver part just doesn't translate into 4th at all; with the exception of Bull Rush, there aren't generic combat maneuvers that every character can do, rather they are a part of individual powers, and there is never going to be a 4th Edition Power that has some variation of "Use any of these other powers from other classes using your preferred stats at range." That leaves the mass hurl, which is doable but requires enough spent resources that it cuts into the effectiveness of other abilities.

The Antimagic cone is another concept that doesn't translate properly, as effects that completely nullify other classes don't exist. We can grab a lesser, more PC-friendly ability though in the Wizard's Dispel Magic, one of the few ways to directly turn off existing Conjurations or Zones (both keywords that have specific meanings in 4th, but basically it ends ongoing magical effects); outside of specific powers, effects remain until the duration expires, whether because it wasn't maintained or a save was made, so effects like this are as close to antimagic as you can get.

The flight can come from race, though here we hit a minor snag, mostly coming 4th's general aversion to permanent flight at low levels. The Pixie though can be fluffed as a mini-beholder (closer to gauth in size if not anatomy) quite readily, excepting the Fey Origin part; frankly, that only has an effect on a few very specific items and powers, so I'd have no problem changing that out for Aberrant Origin instead (I'd use an existing Aberrant race, but those basically don't exist; 4th Edition treats Aberrations as fundamentally different from everything else, and thus there aren't any Far Realm races). More importantly, it grants Stat Bonuses important for our class choices; in 4th, every Race adds +2 to one stat, and +2 to another stat that must be chosen from two others. In this case, Pixies give +2 to CHA (important for Warlock) and a choice between DEX and INT for the other (INT for Wizard, obviously, and it also provides benefits for a variety of Warlock powers.) Pixie is also one of the few PC races that actually has a fly speed, and while it can't hover natively, it's also light enough to be kept airborne by its own Mage Hand cantrip if you absolutely need to hover in place (there might also be a feat somewhere that helps, but I lack the system mastery to confirm/deny).

You don't need to worry overmuch about how items would be incompatible with Beholder anatomy; the Inherent Bonus system can ensure you won't fall behind in the numbers the system expects you to have.

So to sum up, this has multiple single target effects approximating the Beholder rays, the natural flight, and one of the few ways in the system to dispel magic. The abilities may not all be there at level 1, but it's still playable from that level, gaining the more powerful effects as it levels in a way vaguely similar to Savage Species Racial Classes. Is there something you were looking for in particular that's still missing?

EDIT: Attempting to format a little bit better to alleviate Wall o' Text Syndrome.

[Vanitas]

Already means it has no real credibility for me.

Are you familiar with AD&D and OD&D? There are a lot more differences between one and the other than between 3.5 and 4e, specially towards the end of 3.5 design cycle.