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Post by: warboss
Just checking to see how the reception has been for the D&D 5e playtest beta has been. I don't have a regular group to game with (in any edition of any RPG game sadly) so I didn't sign up or download the materials for this project. Is there a general consensus among those who actually use it? Has it changed much in the year or so its been out in the wild? I'm not interested in another rolling battle of edition wars but I would like to hear how the 5e rules reflect on mechanics used both in 3e and 4e.
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Post by: Manchu
The necessary background here is, I split the D&D editions into two camps: in the first camp, the players interpret the rules; in the second camp, the rules determine the play. My impression of 5E is that it falls into the second camp while paying some lip service to the first. There are a few things I like about it: rolling 2d20 for advantage feels neat. All in all, however, 5E seems like a mess to me. "Too little, too late" is the phrase that comes to mind.
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Post by: warboss
What does the "advantage" mechanic do for you? I seem to recall some sort of vague +2 bonus bandied about with the term from a while back but I'm not sure if that's a 4e thing I'm halfway recalling or if its from a review of the initial 5e playtest release.
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Post by: Ahtman
Roll 2d20 and take the highest, having disadvantage is 2d20 and take the lowest. Though that might have changed, as I haven't read any of the playtest materials since the initial release.
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Post by: warboss
Ah, interesting. A bit of a different take in an RPG borrowed maybe from minis games. RPGs have always seemed to have more modifiers whereas minis games I've played freely incorporate rerolls.
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Post by: Manchu
Yeah, I'd say there's a prejudice against rerolling dice in D&D. I guess a roll in D&D is conceived of as the out-of-game indicator that the in-game action has occurred. A reroll in that event feels like "time magic." Even dis/advantage is not actually a reroll, keep in mind.
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Post by: Balance
 warboss wrote:Ah, interesting. A bit of a different take in an RPG borrowed maybe from minis games. RPGs have always seemed to have more modifiers whereas minis games I've played freely incorporate rerolls.
There's modifiers as well, btu this is (from the analysis I've seen) apparently intended as a sort of 'last chance' modifier that is fully intended as the 'player/ GM whim modifier' except when specified. Some stuff specifically grants advantage/disadvantage, but it is also a catch-all for stuff like throwing a rug over an enemy, then attacking them (the enemy grants advantage until it's removed).
Overall, I see some good ideas, but it seems like a bit of a mess because they're sticking to a stated policy of trying to please fans of every edition (although fans of 4e are feeling a bit neglected... The only ideas inspired by 4e are implemented a bit awkwardly at best. Healing surges as an easy core mechanic as hit dice that are a bit harder to manage and not used elsewhere.).
I'm cautiously optimistic, still. I recognize that we're still seeing a pretty rough draft at this point.
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Post by: warboss
I thought the whole pleasing fans of every edition was supposed to be some sort of modular plug-n-play type thing. My info is quite old (pretty much from the initial release and not first hand but rather from reading reviews of it) but did they give up on that? They were supposed to be rules modules that you just swap in for instance if you want a more 2nd edition feel.
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Post by: Dr. What
I've been doing D&D Next with 2 of my friends (just a small adventure where they go on various quests that I cook up and it all relates to a little village).
The combat seems pretty smooth and there's not much that I've seen to gripe about.
Though perhaps somebody could clarify:
When do you add your stat (i.e. strength) and when do you just add the modifier?
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Post by: Manchu
Is there any situation where you add your full stat?
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Post by: Chongara
It has some good ideas, but feels a bit too stripped down. It feels like they wanted to remove a lot of the rules baggage, which is admirable in a general sense but not very "D&D". My group got in a good 5 sessions or so before the GM became disillusioned and just wanted to run pathfinder or something. Honestly it's not so bad, but I don't think it's what anyone in the larger community is really looking for.
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Post by: Alfndrate
 Dr. What wrote:I've been doing D&D Next with 2 of my friends (just a small adventure where they go on various quests that I cook up and it all relates to a little village).
The combat seems pretty smooth and there's not much that I've seen to gripe about.
Though perhaps somebody could clarify:
When do you add your stat (i.e. strength) and when do you just add the modifier?
Unless they're completely changing some things around, it should never be adding the full stat, it should just be the modifier.
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Post by: Balance
warboss wrote:I thought the whole pleasing fans of every edition was supposed to be some sort of modular plug-n-play type thing. My info is quite old (pretty much from the initial release and not first hand but rather from reading reviews of it) but did they give up on that? They were supposed to be rules modules that you just swap in for instance if you want a more 2nd edition feel.
From what I've heard they are still putting some modularity in. This is creating some weirdness, as they have to (for example) balance a class without knowing if it has 'skills' or not (As skills/"non-weapon proficiences' are a 2nd edition+ thing (or, at least, added near the end of 1st, and thus heresy to 1st edition players) which is causing some weirdness. Modularity has, at least on some forums, become a shorthand for "Stuff we want to get to, later, if we have time."
A great idea they seem to have stumbled on and moved away from was that your 'class' (in the traditional sense... Fighter, Magic-User, Thief, Cleric, etc.) would be "what you do in combat" and characters would have a Background that would be "What you do outside combat" with some overlap between the two. So Noble might be a background and would open up some social skills & abilities. A Noble Fighter might be a high-born feudal knight type, while a Noble Cleric would have the skills to be a real wheeler-dealer in an organized church. Both would also have the expected fighter/cleric abilities for general combat use, and would be more 'social' characters as opposed to their companions Artisan Rogue (who can make stuff, due to the Artisan background, and is great if you need some mechanical devices tinkered with) and Gladiator Fighter (Who gets some showy combat schticks to up the fightiness, but really not much else outside performing).
This is what it sounded like they were moving to at one point, but it seems they may have withdrawn. last playtest packed I read analysis of, they were still rethinking basics like 'how skills work' having tried multiple systems (At one point, they seemed to be leaning towards broad skills with small bonuses, so someone with the 'seamanship' ability would be able to make the case for a bonus to climb rigging (It's something sailors do) but not climbing a stone wall (The Rogue might have a Climb Anything skill, of course). I believe they've back to a more traditional set skill list, but that's got a lot of fine decision to make as well (think how various editions have broken up/combined search/spot and move silently/hide in shadows).
The last I've seen definitely still felt like a system being designed. Major core classes were in flux. For example, fighters and rogues were redesigned several times to try out various ways of making them more interesting than many felt the 1st-3rd versions were by default. It looks like fighters will have special maneuvers and/or bonuses to maneuvers. One thing I hope the design team recognizes is a comment I saw online: "The best status effect is 'dead'" Requiring Fighters to swap damage dice, bonuses to hit, etc. for knockdowns, stuns, forced moves, etc. is a good way to make those effects rarely used,
The design team is aware of a lot of the online fanbase's concerns. Priorities may differ, of course, but they are aware that a lot of people feel that spellcasters dominate at high levels in many editions, a relative minority wants to go back to fighters having no real options beyond 'attack with weapon' and they want to emphasize the bits that don't translate to MMO terms well, like puzzle solving, 'non-linear thinking exercises' and social interaction. Map-combat shouldn't be required, but should be supported.
As I said, I'm cautiously optimistic. To be honest, if it was my call I'd dump the modularity requirement as it seems to be a big resource sink with minimal benefits and focus on identifying and taking the best raw concepts from every edition and making them into a whole that stands on it's own two feet.
1st edition had a ton of 'stuff' and is a pretty basic core.
2nd edition cleaned up first, added NWPs, but I feel the biggest 'thing' of 2nd was the wealth of creative settings and add-ons.
3rd moved to a unified system for so many things. Some great mechanical ideas like prestige classes, although they became a tool for power-gaming.
4th had some great ideas on giving every character fun ready-to-go combat options.
5th looks to be a mix of these, but not sure in what way it'll come out. Done right, it could be great. Done wrong, it could be a mess.
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Post by: SoloFalcon1138
it should tell WotC something that the retro editions sold faster than their latest "creations". Maybe making D&D into WoW isn't why people want to play, maybe they want something different.
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Post by: Manchu
@Balance: Not sure you "get" 5E, given you left Basic out of your analysis. The core of 5E is supposedly equivalent to Basic (minus RAC). The "standard" ruleset is streamlined 3.5/4E. "Advanced" apparently translates to bolting on nitty-gritty stuff like facing in miniatures combat. (In other words, the sea of splat becomes "advanced.")
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Post by: warboss
 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:it should tell WotC something that the retro editions sold faster than their latest "creations". Maybe making D&D into WoW isn't why people want to play, maybe they want something different.
Do you have a reference for the above beyond just "at my store"? I'm not a fan of the direction they chose for 4th edition but I can't recall seeing any sales data on the reprint editions comparing them to 4th or 3rd. Automatically Appended Next Post:  Balance wrote:
A great idea they seem to have stumbled on and moved away from was that your 'class' (in the traditional sense... Fighter, Magic-User, Thief, Cleric, etc.) would be "what you do in combat" and characters would have a Background that would be "What you do outside combat" with some overlap between the two. So Noble might be a background and would open up some social skills & abilities. A Noble Fighter might be a high-born feudal knight type, while a Noble Cleric would have the skills to be a real wheeler-dealer in an organized church. Both would also have the expected fighter/cleric abilities for general combat use, and would be more 'social' characters as opposed to their companions Artisan Rogue (who can make stuff, due to the Artisan background, and is great if you need some mechanical devices tinkered with) and Gladiator Fighter (Who gets some showy combat schticks to up the fightiness, but really not much else outside performing).
The above sounds interesting although I'm not sure in the end if it'll be different than simply multiclassing in the 3rd edition fashion (to get the same skills). I guess it's more elegant to have the option to do so in your own class to a degree as opposed to borrowing another but the final result would be heavily dependent on how abusable it is.
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Post by: Balance
SoloFalcon1138 wrote:it should tell WotC something that the retro editions sold faster than their latest "creations". Maybe making D&D into WoW isn't why people want to play, maybe they want something different.
Nostalgia is a powerful thing. It'd be harder to capture, but I think it would be more interesting if we could determine how much use those older books get. 1st -> 2nd -> 3rd is a relatively linear evolution of the design, while 3rd -> 4th is a bit more of a massive changeover. A lot of people are probably looking at the older editions for reference, nostalgia, or just to see what came before. It doesn't mean they'll get played.
If it was my call, 5th would use the following from 4th:
4th-style healing surges would be in the game in some fashion. Tweaked, sure, but it makes potions work great (A weak healing potion is a few HP. A regular healing potion lets the PC spend a Healing Surge to heal. Stronger is 2x surges and/or a free surge.)
Specify that HP are abstract. A long-term issue with D&D. Helps resolve age-old issues with non-magical healing, and works. Potions of Cure light don't become vendor trash.
Keep the role 'concept' in play, but less obvious.
Limit duration of effects by 'Encounter' whenever possible. Reduced bookkeeping.
Have some sort of mechanical 'hook' for each class (or family of classes) so everyone has some mechanics. Not set on the 4th Powers system, but
Keep 'Rituals' as a mechanic for longer, more involved magic spells.
Keep spellcasters able to re-use low-level spells as needed.
Keep some sort of 'respec' as a stated option, even if it requires GM approval. A character shouldn't be stuck with a mistake that makes their character not-fun.
4th has some great ideas. It's actually a lot more 'lightweight' of a ruleset in many ways than 3rd despite the formalized power structure.
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Post by: Manchu
Balance wrote:1st -> 2nd -> 3rd is a relatively linear evolution of the design, while 3rd -> 4th is a bit more of a massive changeover.
By 1st and 2nd, I'm assuming you mean the iterations of AD&D. Although some aspects of the way WotC handled 3.5 as a product line were foreshadowed by TSR's handling of AD&D 2E (kits), the major break in play style/design theory occurred across WotC's purchase of TSR. Fourth Edition, meanwhile, is simply the spirit of 3.5 taken to its logical extreme.
Sorry if it feels like I'm after you on this one, Balance. Your posts usually make a lot of sense but these are way off.
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Post by: Balance
warboss wrote:
Balance wrote:
A great idea they seem to have stumbled on and moved away from was that your 'class' (in the traditional sense... Fighter, Magic-User, Thief, Cleric, etc.) would be "what you do in combat" and characters would have a Background that would be "What you do outside combat" with some overlap between the two. So Noble might be a background and would open up some social skills & abilities. A Noble Fighter might be a high-born feudal knight type, while a Noble Cleric would have the skills to be a real wheeler-dealer in an organized church. Both would also have the expected fighter/cleric abilities for general combat use, and would be more 'social' characters as opposed to their companions Artisan Rogue (who can make stuff, due to the Artisan background, and is great if you need some mechanical devices tinkered with) and Gladiator Fighter (Who gets some showy combat schticks to up the fightiness, but really not much else outside performing).
The above sounds interesting although I'm not sure in the end if it'll be different than simply multiclassing in the 3rd edition fashion (to get the same skills). I guess it's more elegant to have the option to do so in your own class to a degree as opposed to borrowing another but the final result would be heavily dependent on how abusable it is.
Keep in mind that this is a mix of the 2-3 playtests I've seen and read reviews of. It's a bit different from multiclassing: you get a Background every X levels. I think the most recent versions have been closer to your idea, with classes picking from 2-3 background options (At GenCon last year, Thief could choose from 'Thug' or 'Scoundrel' as a Class Option I believe. More confusingly, there was also a 'Scoundrel' Background. Backgrounds were optional, but unless the group vetoed them, you're giving away skills and cool stuff for no gain by not taking one.
I liked the overlap idea as it made characters a bit more multi-faceted the way I saw it. it kept the base classes simple by reducing or removing the need for 'Class Options' and shouldn't have had many weird combo concerns. In general, Class bonuses/abilities and Background bonuses/abilities shouldn't overlap, so no stacking concerns.
You mentioned multi-classing, which has always been a weird topic in every edition of D&D. It looks like they're trying an experiment in Next to make 'class dipping' less advantageous. The end result is a 1st level 1st-4th character is going to be closer to a 3rd or 5th level Next character. Over the first few levels, each class will get it's traditional abilities and bonuses. Consider the Ranger, which has always been a bit front-loaded with level 1 getting a bunch of skills, tracking, two-weapon fighting, archery, etc. Now these will be spread over a few levels, so taking one level of a class is not as potentially unbalancing. Spellcasters won't get their full 1st level spell-casting until they hit 3 or whatever.
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Post by: WarOne
DnD Next I have not followed that well to be honest, having grown disillusioned from WoTC's direction of MtG and DnD 4th ed.
Looking into the basics of DnD Next, does it look like a stripped down version of other editions melted together, giving you a core of rules that you can then use to play your own version of the game?
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Post by: Alpharius
"Healing Surges" always sound silly to me...
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Post by: nomotog
I did a play test with some of the early rules and I liked it. The rules where simple and I was able do a lot in a short time. I'm not as happy with the changes they have been adding.
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Post by: Alfndrate
I had healing urges, but then I was told to buckle my pants back up  . It seemed like an awesome concept to me at first, but it just seemed more like a pain than it was. I get WHY it was added (so your cleric isn't just a walking box of bandaids), but at the same time it just seemed clunky.
Speaking of D&D Next, has anyone been reading TableTitans? It's a comic by Scott Kurtz with his lab assistant Mary Cagle, and it's officially backed by Wizards of the Coast. Some of you might recognize Scott as the guy behind PvP, Blamimations, the short lived WoW comic, Ding!, and as one of the minds behind Trenches. He works for/with Penny Arcade and has been in some of the DnD Podcasts with them.
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Post by: Manchu
Why do so many webcomics start off as three/four panel jokes and end up taking themselves seriously over "arcs"? It's on-topic, happens in D&D as well!
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Post by: Alfndrate
 Manchu wrote:Why do so many webcomics start off as three/four panel jokes and end up taking themselves seriously over "arcs"? It's on-topic, happens in D&D as well!
I mean if TableTitans is like that, I didn't notice it  . But I think the reason why most people start off joking in a dnd campaign is because most of the people around the table are friends, and look at dnd and RPGs as games rather than interactive storytelling experiences. It also goes along with the fact that most first level games (in my experience) tend to be a bit of a joke. "Oh god, a town of 50 can't handle 10 kobolds, woe is us!" Or like in the case of Pathfinder's Rise of the Runelords, the DM has to "sing" that silly goblin song... but as the adventure matures, and the more connected to the story the characters get, the more serious things tend to become.
Idk, I'm probably just blowing smoke 
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Post by: Balance
In practice, they worked well. As I suggested above, it made potions that heal a percentage very workable and useful. It helped reinforce the idea that Hit Points are meant as a kind of abstract thing, not some sort of actual health measurement. I.E. losing most of one's hit points just means getting bruised, minor cuts, scratches, maybe some minor wounds. Also, it's a way of showing fatigue as a character is worn down by the stress of fighting. It's the last big hit that means a serious, life-threatening wound. With 'abstract' hit points this works pretty well. A 'tougher' character (like a higher-level PC) can take more abuse before getting that serious wound, but it's still a few spells to clear up the damage.
Pre-4e, this as a bit less clear. Characters grew tougher and required more healing for the same effect. A high-level character would barely notice the healing froma Cure Light Wounds. This bothers some people... It's a major 'game-ism' for them.
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Post by: Ahtman
Alpharius wrote:"Healing Surges" always sound silly to me...
I like the idea behind the mechanic, in theory, but the name could be better. The healing dice was an interesting idea, but I don't know how it has changed, if at all. Also, see my sig.
nomotog wrote:I did a play test with some of the early rules and I liked it. The rules where simple and I was able do a lot in a short time. I'm not as happy with the changes they have been adding.
I had fun with the earlier iterations that we messed around with, but haven't played much since then. It was fairly clean and elegant, with a smattering of good ideas plucked from different systems and some original (to DnD) ideas mixed it. I get the impression that as time goes on that there is more edition creep (as in pet favorites concepts that may not be needed are brought in) and instead of a clean, efficient product we will get some unholy abomination of copy and paste elements.
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Post by: Da Boss
I'm interested in Next, but I'm also fairly happy with Pathfinder at the moment so I'm not sure if I'll go "all in" for it. I think it depends what sort of support is offered outside of just a "core system", like the setting material and production values and so on.
I've run like 16 levels of 4th edition at this stage, and I think it is a good system earlier on and then becomes a bit bloated and sluggish in the higher levels. Healing surges are a bit of a tiresome mechanic in some ways because it means it's very very hard to wear a party down and let them feel "on the ropes" without spending a LOT of time in combat. Similarly, the progression for defences for enemies is a bit out of whack and some have too many hit points and not enough variety in what they do. I'm told this was fixed with the Monster's Vault but to be honest I wasn't willing to go and buy another book after two monster manual's worth.
What I do hope they keep is some of the core setting ideas from 4th. The Primordials, the new cosmology, the increased relevance of the Fey, all of these are Very Good Things.
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Post by: Manchu
 Da Boss wrote:Healing surges are a bit of a tiresome mechanic in some ways because it means it's very very hard to wear a party down and let them feel "on the ropes" without spending a LOT of time in combat.
3.5/4E PCs are basically fantasy-genre superheroes. Da Boss wrote:What I do hope they keep is some of the core setting ideas from 4th. The Primordials, the new cosmology, the increased relevance of the Fey, all of these are Very Good Things.
Yeah, I love that stuff -- I'm much happier with 4E Cosmology.  Ahtman wrote:instead of a clean, efficient product we will get some unholy abomination of copy and paste elements.
Those are why WotC calls the "advanced" rules (including, I kid you not, prospective facing rules with miniatures).
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Post by: nomotog
Manchu wrote: Da Boss wrote:Healing surges are a bit of a tiresome mechanic in some ways because it means it's very very hard to wear a party down and let them feel "on the ropes" without spending a LOT of time in combat.
3.5/4E PCs are basically fantasy-genre superheroes. Da Boss wrote:What I do hope they keep is some of the core setting ideas from 4th. The Primordials, the new cosmology, the increased relevance of the Fey, all of these are Very Good Things.
Yeah, I love that stuff -- I'm much happier with 4E Cosmology. Ahtman wrote:instead of a clean, efficient product we will get some unholy abomination of copy and paste elements.
Those are why WotC calls the "advanced" rules (including, I kid you not, prospective facing rules with miniatures).
At least at the start, they seemed to be afraid of anything that could be associated with 4ED. It's lessened, but I still get the feeling that they are trying to distance themselves as far away from it as they can. That can be good or bad depending on your feelings. (My feeling is that 4ed killed D&D, so even it's good ideas carry the stink of death.)
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Post by: Da Boss
I think 4th edition characters are more superhero-y than 3.5 characters. 3.5 only gets really super after level 6 or so, whereas 4th edition characters are all action heroes from level 1.
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Post by: nomotog
3.5 characters could be almost whatever you wanted them to be. That was one of the advantages 3.5 had over 4ed. You could have classes based around anything from combat to potion making. I even recall a fan made class the merchant.
This detail is something that I think next is doing even better then 3.5. Now you aren't even required to give a class a BAB. You could literally have a class that gives you no combat ability at all. (3.5 required that it gain attack and saves at least.)
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Post by: Manchu
Agreed. Dark Sun is a tragic casualty of 4E. I hope everyone who curses WotC for not re-releasing Ravenloft and Planescape will come to appreciate that much as a blessing. Automatically Appended Next Post: Da Boss wrote:I think 4th edition characters are more superhero-y than 3.5 characters. 3.5 only gets really super after level 6 or so, whereas 4th edition characters are all action heroes from level 1.
True enough but, when you think about it, isn't that really more of a criticism of 3.5 than 4E. Again, 4E was just the logical extension of 3.5.
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Post by: Ahtman
nomotog wrote:(My feeling is that 4ed killed D&D, so even it's good ideas carry the stink of death.)
That is ok, I think 3 killed D&D, and spread it's foul stench over much of game design for to long, but we all have to move on.
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Post by: nomotog
Ahtman wrote:nomotog wrote:(My feeling is that 4ed killed D&D, so even it's good ideas carry the stink of death.)
That is ok, I think 3 killed D&D, and spread it's foul stench over much of game design for to long, but we all have to move on.
D20 really did get around didn't it. That was one of the things I liked about it. You could type anything with a d20 after it and you would find something for it. Maybe just a class, maybe a whole system, but always something. I mean they made a d20 game about living in a post apocalyptic wallmart. My biggest hope for next is for that to return. Where I can once again find next conversions of megaman and bubblegum crisis. If next can't bring back these conversions, then I will consider it a failure.
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Post by: warboss
Just LARP it by walking into a Walmart a few hours after the zombie Black Friday shopping hordes leave.
Does 5e have a release date yet? If not, I wonder if its ready enough for a date announcement this year at GenCon or if they'll wait for the next D&D con thing WOTC does (assuming they still do that in Jan/Feb).
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Post by: Ahtman
Manchu wrote:Dark Sun is a tragic casualty of 4E. I hope everyone who curses WotC for not re-releasing Ravenloft and Planescape will come to appreciate that much as a blessing.
I think we all know the lack of Al Qadim was what brought the edition down. I liked Dark Sun for 4E, though I hated that we kept being told they were doing Ravenloft, and then it just ended up being a board game. A very hard board game.
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Post by: Alfndrate
Ahtman wrote: Manchu wrote:Dark Sun is a tragic casualty of 4E. I hope everyone who curses WotC for not re-releasing Ravenloft and Planescape will come to appreciate that much as a blessing.
I think we all know the lack of Al Qadim was what brought the edition down. I liked Dark Sun for 4E, though I hated that we kept being told they were doing Ravenloft, and then it just ended up being a board game. A very hard board game.
I'm undefeated in that board game. I'm 1 and 0 But yeah it's a tough game. Also Dark Sun is what drew me back into 4th long enough to run a game... by the end of the adventure my players wanted to play 3.5 again :(
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Post by: Manchu
Ahtman wrote:I think we all know the lack of Al Qadim was what brought the edition down.
PHB4 should have been Spelljammer.
I've had a decent amount of fun with the Drizzt one.
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Post by: Da Boss
The Darksun stuff for 4th is some of the best stuff. The setting book is as good as it ever was I think- some stuff has been altered a bit but the feel is there, and the darksun monster book has the best designed monsters I've seen in 4th.
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Post by: Manchu
Sure, I agree (except that the setting was as well presented in 4E as previously). But going back to nomotog's point, it's not that 4E had no good points; it's that the good points are associated with the bad press/fumbled marketing/consumer confusion/dissatisfaction.
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Post by: Da Boss
I'd agree with that.
I'd also say that 4th edition doesn't do gritty survival in a post apocalypse as well as other editions would seem to.
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Post by: Manchu
Yeah, 4E characters are glowy super heroes. Can be fun.
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Post by: Balance
warboss wrote: Ahtman wrote:
Does 5e have a release date yet? If not, I wonder if its ready enough for a date announcement this year at GenCon or if they'll wait for the next D&D con thing WOTC does (assuming they still do that in Jan/Feb).
No, but they're releasing a special 'play test edition' at GenCon this year that apparently includes 10 levels of several classes, base rules, and several adventures... Basically an expanded and cleaned-up playtest document.
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Post by: reds8n
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/25873.html
Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne looks at what it will take for Dungeons & Dragons to regain the #1 spot in the RPG market.
The recent announcement by Wizards of the Coast that the first release for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, or D&D Next as the company keeps calling it, Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, would only be available for pre-order for sale at this year's Gen-Con, got me thinking about what to expect when D&D 5th Edition, or Next, finally releases, probably in 2014. Can Dungeons & Dragons regain the top position it ceded to Pathfinder when WotC released 4th Edition to a market that has strongly demonstrated it doesn't want the game? Yes, 4th Edition still sells, but when you go from market leader to Pathfinder outselling you by a margin of three to one (and that is probably a bit generous in my estimate), it is a pretty strong indication that your customers do not want your product that much.
As I said, I expect D&D 5th Edition to launch summer of 2014. I also expect Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast to really push within the next few months to get the movie rights back to the Dungeons & Dragons name, as releasing a movie with the Dungeons & Dragons name could do nothing but help publicize the launch of the new edition. However, though I am no expert, it seems a year is not much time to complete a feature film for theatrical release. IT could be released on SyFy perhaps, as with the second D&D movie, but not to the theaters.
Anyhow, D&D has lost the dominant position it held in the RPG market for over two decades to Pathfinder for two reasons. First, there is the perception among many players that D&D 3.5, and hence Pathfinder, is a superior system to 4th Edition D&D. (Whether that is true is a discussion for an online forum someplace. I regularly run into people who swear that 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons still outshines any edition produced since then.) Second, Pathfinder offers a superior organized play experience. While WotC offers two fine OP opportunities, D&D Campaigns and Lair Assault, they offer little of the flexibility and opportunities to advance to participants that Paizo Publishing's Pathfinder Society does.
Every Wednesday night, players across the country know they can find a D&D 4th Edition game at any participating store. However, they also know that it will be the exact same scenario of the exact same campaign and that characters created and played in it have proscribed levels of growth and are limited in lifespan to the length of the Encounters campaign. Compare this to Pathfinder Society, which bears a strong resemblance to WotC's late RPGA Living OP program, which, while it does not offer the regularity of the D&D Encounters program, does offer a wider selection of scenarios, a wider venue in which to play them, and greater flexibility in character design and advancement. So popular is Pathfinder Society among its players that I have seen a resistance to purchasing non-PS approved books, much as I did during the RPGA heyday.
Can D&D 5th/Next take back its crown from Pathfinder? Difficult but possible. It is D&D, so that gives it huge brand awareness within the market. I expect to see a large percentage of the market sample the game rules when they first come out. Whether they adopt them in preference to either 4th Edition or Pathfinder depends on how well they improve on D&D 3.5, since that, it appears, is what the vast majority of players want. Due to his work on the original 3.0 and 3.5 editions, Monte Cook's departure from the development team last year has me worried about that.
WotC will also need a strong OP program for the game, hopefully one that launches either concurrently with or soon after the release of the new edition. The importance of OP to the success of Magic, as well as Pathfinder, should indicate to the company the necessity of having an OP program ready to involve players with the new edition. I have not heard of one currently in development, but hopefully there is a group at WotC working on this in the background. The company has a year or better to look at what worked for the RPGA and what is working for Magic and Pathfinder and to build a program incorporating what players like from all of them. There are some pretty smart people at WotC, so I am expecting they will.
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Post by: Manchu
I'm surprised the article is silent on the matter of WotC leveraging TSR IP. A number of RPG products demonstrate that franchise can be more important than mechanics. While Paizo 3.75 may be perceived as the superior system, what percentage of the market is as attached to Golarion as the various D&D "spheres"?
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Post by: warboss
 reds8n wrote:http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/25873.html Yes, 4th Edition still sells, but when you go from market leader to Pathfinder outselling you by a margin of three to one (and that is probably a bit generous in my estimate), it is a pretty strong indication that your customers do not want your product that much.
As much as I prefer Pathfinder to 4e, I'd point out that it's much easier to outsell an RPG product line that isn't coming out with any new product (i.e. 4e isn't "trying" anymore). WOTC abandoned 4e new releases over a year ago and was sparse for the year prior to that whereas Pathfinder has been coming out with steady releases throughout. The fact that Pathfinder was outselling D&D in alot of stores as well as was able to knock off 4e from the ICV2 top selling spot at least once during 4e's height was a huge achievement... but outselling a book line that is only doing occassional reprints of old material isn't.
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Post by: Ahtman
While I think the article is right about them needing to create a solid organized play environment, the other part sounds like he thinks they should make Next like 3.5, which I think would be a mistake. Trying to compete as evolved 3.5 vs evolved 3.5 gives the advantage to Pathfinder I would think. If anything I think they should make it more AD&Dish but with lessons learned from 3.5 and 4E. Retro-new-school? Eh, I don't know. I would just hate to see them end up with Pathfinder 1.5. for the next D&D.
One thing I think he left out was online support. Pathfinder has a huge pool of resources online that make getting into the game easy.
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Post by: warboss
That sounds... interesting... not sure if positive or negative frankly as I think it is a set of mechanics I'd have to try in person in game rather than just reading it. I'm not getting much of a 3/3.5 vibe from it though. The "simplified" nature of it to me feels more 4e than anything else. 4e would have worked for me personally if they had stuck with the Star Wars Saga midstep version instead of taking it to the next (albeit logical) level of 4e. The simplification and consolidation of skills plus the addition of *some* encounter powers (as opposed to vancian magic) for *some* classes were welcome additions to the core 3/3.5 ruleset; pathfinder adopted those as well to a slightly lesser degree but 4e took it too far for my tastes. I'm not sure what category better fits the 5e rules in that article.
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Post by: Manchu
Putting 3.5 and 4E into separate categories strikes me as splitting hairs. All the major contributions Third Edition made to D&D are simply concentrated/stream-lined into 4E. It just turns out that what people liked about 3.5 was actually its clunkiness and incoherence. Next is shaping up to be an even "cleaner" but non-miniatures-based Essentials in its most basic (not to be confused with Basic) incarnation, while the more "advanced" rules are bolt-on complications. In other words, "modularity" means "customizable emulation of 3.5."
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Post by: warboss
Manchu wrote:Putting 3.5 and 4E into separate categories strikes me as splitting hairs.
My personal experience with the two is that they played like completely different games, much like 3rd compared with 2nd. If that's splitting a hair, it's one as big as the metal cables holding up the Golden Gate bridge. 3/3.5/Pathfinder feels like evolutions of the same core set but 4e was a completely different game. I'm not sure where I'd put Star Wars Saga or 5e currently.
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Post by: Manchu
warboss wrote:My personal experience with the two is that they played like completely different games
It really depends on what else one has played. Play some Basic and then 3.5 is just disorganized 4E. warboss wrote:I'm not sure where I'd put Star Wars Saga or 5e currently.
Saga Edition is proof that 3.5 and 4E are in the same category, mechanically.
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Post by: Ahtman
3.5 and PF are just Erratas of 3, but 4E is the next evolutionary step of the ideas brought about in third.
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Post by: warboss
Saga Edition is proof that 3.5 and 4E are in the same category, mechanically.
No, it's proof that you can combine elements of go fish and rock paper scissors for a result that is neither but can still be fun.
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Post by: Manchu
Ahtman wrote:3.5 and PF are just Erratas of 3, but 4E is the next evolutionary step of the ideas brought about in third.
I agree but maintain this is still hair-splitting. The differences between Third and Fourth look big when you don't consider the rest of D&D. warboss wrote:Saga Edition is proof that 3.5 and 4E are in the same category, mechanically.
No, it's proof that you can combine elements of go fish and rock paper scissors for a result that is neither but can still be fun.
That's a misguided analogy. It seems like you are saying 3.5 and Saga Edition are completely different games, which is simply false. Earlier, you correctly identified Saga Edition as the midstep between 3.5 and 4E. Another example would be Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords. These midstep products show that very little changed conceptually between 3.5 and 4E; rather, the changes were about improving on mechanics underpinning the existing D&D 3E (or WotC D&D, if you like) viewpoint.
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Post by: Ahtman
Manchu wrote: Ahtman wrote:3.5 and PF are just Erratas of 3, but 4E is the next evolutionary step of the ideas brought about in third.
I agree but maintain this is still hair-splitting.
I don't disagree, per see, just trying to be clear on what was being said.
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Post by: Manchu
@Ahtman: Yeah, you said it more clearly. I certainly don't mean 4E is just a Third Edition FAQ. The WotC crew wanted to take the good ideas they had since 2000 and do a discrete product running with that. I think they succeeded, personally (especially with Essentials). On the other hand, looking at Nine Swords and Saga Edition, the line between them is much blurrier than New School Edition Warriors would have you believe. There is an incredibly direct legacy between Third and Fourth that simply does not exist between AD&D 2E Revised and Third, much less regarding the entirely separate branch that is BECMI.
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Post by: warboss
Manchu wrote:No, it's proof that you can combine elements of go fish and rock paper scissors for a result that is neither but can still be fun.
That's a misguided analogy. It seems like you are saying 3.5 and Saga Edition are completely different games, which is simply false. Earlier, you correctly identified Saga Edition as the midstep between 3.5 and 4E. Another example would be Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords. These midstep products show that very little changed conceptually between 3.5 and 4E; rather, the changes were about improving on mechanics underpinning the existing D&D 3E (or WotC D&D, if you like) viewpoint.
Saga and 3.5 are not completely different games but they're not the same game either despite one being derived from the other. 3.5 and 4e are IMO completely different games though as 4e crossed the line from evolutionary to revolutionary for me (especially if you didn't have the benefit of the completely different product line step of Saga). I played saga and so expected *some* of the changes in 4e but they took it alot further unexpectedly in 4e. Several long time 3/3.5 gamers I played with didn't play in my Saga campaign and transitioned directly from 3.5 to 4e and had no clue what to make of the new editon. The change for them was too drastic to be anything other than a completely new game that shared a few mechanics and many terms (with frequently different meanings). I suspect neither of us will convince the other and in any case it's not the point of this thread.
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Post by: Manchu
warboss wrote:I suspect neither of us will convince the other and in any case it's not the point of this thread.
Sure it is. The question is, what's 5E shaping up like? And the answer is, modular 3.5. I really expected 4E to be much closer to Saga so I was also somewhat shocked by 4E. There was a lot to learn when the 4E books first came out. But that's not my point here. I am saying that what I had to learn in order to play Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry after years of 3.5 was much, much more significant because it entailed a completely different mindset. WotC has stated, often explicitly referencing Basic, that they intend 5E to bring all D&D under one tent. But their admirable transparency indicates that said tent is really just Third Edition. And Third Edition is already the tent that contains all of WotC's significant work (Everway aside, for example) on RPGs -- including 4E. I agree with Ahtman's point that 4E is not errata of 3.5, a la Pathfinder, but it's the exact same mindset when it comes to answering the question "how do you play a RPG?" Older editions of D&D, especially Basic but even the concurrent AD&D line, offer a very different answer to that question. The further we get from Paizo's declaration of the Edition Wars, the more I understand that they (the so-called wars, I mean) were driven by financial rather than design considerations. Meanwhile, the real mechanical issues were not being discussed. Again, the big divergence is between a style that is now being emulated under the title "OSR" on one hand and 3.5/ PF/4E on the other. Everything about 5E makes me think of the latter category; nothing about it makes me think of the former. For me, 5E development so far has been an excellent lesson in how similar 3.5 and 4E really are -- all marketing aside. Saying 5E is more like 4E than 3.5 or more like 3.5 than 4E, those end up being kind of meaningless sentiments.
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Post by: Buzzsaw
As someone that collected D&D for decades, only to find after playing that I really loved the refinements of 4e, the playtest has been... distressing.
Manchu seems fairly close to my thoughts that 4e is not so foreign to design elements of 3.5; unfortunately, since Next is aggressively designed to appeal to the same crowd that has a vicious dislike of 4e, it means that Next has thus far over-corrected ( IMO) away from the truly great innovations of 4e.
Elements as trivial as the increased HP at the start, or that even at level 1 everyone is already a hero (and no more LFQW!), healing surges and encounter powers... all of these are things that I find great, but there seem to be no small number of people on the playtest forums who look at these like a Baptist Preacher looks at the Folsom Street Fair.
Frankly, while the much promised modular system is still... well, promised (a year or so in and it doesn't seem to have really managed to poke it's head out of its burrow). Even if it is, as they claim it will be, possible to recreate 4e with 5e modules, I'm left pondering why I would want to go thought the process of buying an entire new set of rules to play the game using rules I bought a year ago.
All that said, at the moment the playtest forums seem to be mostly characterized by ambivalence and disinterest. Certainly all my group's interest has evaporated, and the forums tend to be ... iffy.
Meh.
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Post by: Dr. What
Are the current D&D Encounters compatible with D&D Next?
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Post by: Manchu
Yes, WotC offers conversion notes for Next.
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Post by: Dr. What
Well, my FLGS was going to finally start doing D&D Encounters next week with the new campaign, but, we missed the sanction by a month.
We can either get WotC do search there warehouses for an extra copy or wait until August for the next one....
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Post by: Grot 6
In the way in which it has been as hotly contested with no give from the "Designers", I gave up on it before it even came out of the gate. From the discussion on their forum, I'm not the only one.
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Post by: Ahtman
 Grot 6 wrote:In the way in which it has been as hotly contested with no give from the "Designers", I gave up on it before it even came out of the gate. From the discussion on their forum, I'm not the only one.
You are going to have to elaborate on that, as I am not sure what you mean. Are you saying they aren't kowtowing to the whims of a capricious and fickle fan base or that they are ignoring any input at all?
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Post by: Grot 6
Ahtman wrote: Grot 6 wrote:In the way in which it has been as hotly contested with no give from the "Designers", I gave up on it before it even came out of the gate. From the discussion on their forum, I'm not the only one.
You are going to have to elaborate on that, as I am not sure what you mean. Are you saying they aren't kowtowing to the whims of a capricious and fickle fan base or that they are ignoring any input at all?
I'm saying that it is outright not popular as a discussion. I'm not going to go on out and entertain your last... remark. The conversation on their board is not very civil, and from that point alone, not the mention the reaction and almost cult like defense of the "new" game, It outright turned me off to even giving it a second look. " capricious and fickle" aren't words I would use to describe the bile flow on the "Official" forum, more like bile filled fanatics with a mean streak. Then there were the defenders and the outright hostility that they are almost proud of.... " Yes, we listen, but THIS is the new game. Like it or lump it."attitude.
All around, they all suck. I have my first edition stuff, it was fine then, its fine now for light playing and some easy pick up fun.
I hate what that crowd has become. Then they wonder why pathfinder took off like a shot. 
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Post by: Ahtman
Grot 6 wrote:I'm saying that it is outright not popular as a discussion.
I'm not sure that because something is contentious means it shouldn't be discussed, or that it is wrong. Some things will be contentious by their nature. If you mean rude, then yeah, that is annoying, but seems an odd stumbling block as it would seem it would mean you wouldn't be able to partake in almost any forum anywhere on the net.
Grot 6 wrote:I'm not going to go on out and entertain your last... remark.
The only way not to entertain it would be to not acknowledge it, so thank you. It also was more playfully silly than malicious.
I've seen some of your posts here before, so that seems tainted by cognitive dissonance.
Grot 6 wrote: the reaction and almost cult like defense of the "new" game
That is odd, my experience on the forums has been about the opposite. The cult like devotion tends more toward older systems, not beta tests, though obliviously it will have it's defenders.
Grot 6 wrote: Then they wonder why pathfinder took off like a shot.
No one wonders that, we know why, and it is a combination of reasons, not any one specific one, and it certainly wasn't because people can be rude online.
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Post by: Grot 6
Grot 6 wrote: Ahtman wrote: Grot 6 wrote:In the way in which it has been as hotly contested with no give from the "Designers", I gave up on it before it even came out of the gate. From the discussion on their forum, I'm not the only one.
You are going to have to elaborate on that, as I am not sure what you mean. Are you saying they aren't kowtowing to the whims of a capricious and fickle fan base or that they are ignoring any input at all?
I'm saying that it is outright not popular as a discussion. I'm not going to go on out and entertain your last... remark. The conversation on their board is not very civil, and from that point alone, not the mention the reaction and almost cult like defense of the "new" game, It outright turned me off to even giving it a second look. " capricious and fickle" aren't words I would use to describe the bile flow on the "Official" forum, more like bile filled fanatics with a mean streak. Then there were the defenders and the outright hostility that they are almost proud of.... " Yes, we listen, but THIS is the new game. Like it or lump it."attitude.
All around, they all suck. I have my first edition stuff, it was fine then, its fine now for light playing and some easy pick up fun.
I hate what that crowd has become. Then they wonder why pathfinder took off like a shot.
This is my post, chief.
Don't cut and paste it into something it clearly is not.
You said elaborate, I put it to post.
That D and D forum put me off. Period. Between the like it and suck it attitude and the nerdrage, I gave it a rest. It was hostile and the hostility went both ways to the point where I stopped going in there. I'm a sweetheart compared to some of the hate that was shown there on both sides of the discussion. Because of this, I don't want to entertain "Next".
It wasn't contentious, it went to the point of personal attacks, doublespeak, and genuine stupidity.
Because of it, it put me off to the game.
I'm not the only one, either. D and D next is not popular. They are trying too hard to jam it to the masses and not hearing what people are saying, because they are "Experts", and "Know what people Want"...
If it was so great they wouldn't go into automatic defense mode at every turn.
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Post by: ProtoClone
Well, our group tried it back when they first started the open testing and after four session we went back to Gamma World 4e.
We all agreed that what they had given us very little to be excited about any future open testings and unless the final product is simply amazing we probably won't make the jump. Hell, we are thinking of just dropping WOTC, except Gamma World, all together.
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Post by: Alfndrate
 ProtoClone wrote:Well, our group tried it back when they first started the open testing and after four session we went back to Gamma World 4e.
We all agreed that what they had given us very little to be excited about any future open testings and unless the final product is simply amazing we probably won't make the jump. Hell, we are thinking of just dropping WOTC, except Gamma World, all together.
I have a question, is 4th edition/Gamma World your first foray into RPGs/ DnD? I've tried to "convert" people that have only ever known 4th edition to come over to Pathfinder/3.5 and most of them refuse to try it preferring the game that they started with over the games that are different from the edition they know and love.
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Post by: loota boy
I think most of edition loyalty doesn't stem from the quality of the edition, but from which one people started with and what they have the most time invested in. I only seriously started Dnd with the ripe beginning of 4th. Throughout my childhood i played AD&D with my dad, but 4th was where i actually got serious. Now i have near $800 worth of books in my collection. Even if 5th is a groundbreaking, fantastic system, i won't move on, simply because 4th is what i know and have decent system mastery in, and i have sunk so much money into it. Even if it is the perfect system, I still have to learn it and spend money on it and lose value of what i have already invested in. I own damn near all the fourth ed. books besides the adventures, and i'm happy using that.
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Post by: Forar
Personally, I cut my teeth with AD&D a good two decades ago, and while I enjoyed myself, it didn't really stick long term. After getting into Rifts a few years later in High School, it became my crew's go-to game for a good half a decade, before we finally tired of dealing with the balance issues and massive gaping holes in the mechanics of the system.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, if I ever meet Kevin Siembieda I'm going to shake his hand and then rant for a good five minutes about how half of this ... stuff should've been caught in testing and editing.
Eventually we moved to 3E D&D, and loved it, as the balance, while not perfect, is easily head and shoulders better than Rifts and other Palladium games (though that's not exactly a bar that's set very high). Spent a couple years on that and ended up skipping 3.5, but we all got back in with 4E, and it's my favourite edition so far.
The combat is indeed more similar to a wargame than many, but we played 3E with maps and minis at times, so that wasn't a surprise to us. Each class having a role and the mechanics being designed such that it was pretty straightforward and intuitive to build a character that was decent at what it did was nice, as opposed to the outright traps found in 3E (some appreciate 'system mastery', I consider it less acceptable in an RPG than, say, M:tG).
I know the mechanical changes put a lot of people off, but that was something I simply loved. Instead of it often boiling down to some variation on "I swing my sword/stab with my dagger really hard" for a few levels and then the casters went bonkers rending space and time, ALL of the classes can do awesome stuff. Not everyone contributes perfectly equally, but all classes are at least capable of contributing (barring extenuating circumstances, player issues or the dice simply hating a given player that day). Encounter building and stat blocks were pretty straightforward, and overall we had a blast with the system.
My biggest complaint of that era was how they touted the virtual table top, the people they hired completely and utterly failed, and it wasn't until the final nails were being driven into the coffin that an actual VTT (WOTC and otherwise) really materialized. Sure, there was maptools, but my group found that to be a bit of a mess to get everyone sync'd up to play.
Now, granted, this is with mostly Heroic and Paragon tier experience. I'm told that the Epic tier had some serious issues, some of which were resolved with math tweaks to the game, others (particularly a lack of material/support for that level of play) never materialized.
I don't hate earlier editions, and it can exasperate me the ends to which some people will go to shout about how their way of playing fantasy elves is best (or the way(s) I play fantasy elves suck). 4E is my favourite, and I miss playing my Dragonborn Cleric/Paladin who was built to take a beating, but that doesn't make me occasionally wish I could get a game going and play the Halfling Paladin with a celestial wardog (so I could justify taking all the mounted feats and using them inside a dungeon). Not sure I'd go much further back than that outside of a really awesome group, but it doesn't have to be a "Console Wars" style binary of "I like X so Y sucks and you suck for liking Y!!"
Don't get me started on those filthy heathens who enjoy Z!!
Edit: as for the playtest itself, I haven't participated in a Next playstest personally, but I have read through a couple of Play By Post playtests of the system. They... do not inspire confidence.
I'll say this much, I have the PHB for AD&D, 3E, 3.5E (I'm not even sure where that came from) and 4E, making 5E/Next the first D&D edition created since the 80's that I won't have any books for. Which is cool, if it's not for me, then fine, whatever, I do hope it's successful and gives people what they want. If I really get a dungeon crawling itch, I could always get a game going with what I have. But it is unfortunate and a bit frustrating to watch the Next dev diaries do everything they can (at times) to seem to distance themselves from what I felt were some of the best updates to the system in years.
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Post by: Ahtman
The new playtest packet is out, for those keeping up on this sort of thing. So far I have discovered that Monks only gain Hit Points at level 1.*
*It is a copy/paste error saying that monks get d8+CON per level of Druid instead of per monk level.
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Post by: warboss
And apparently from the discussion over on enworld, skills as a named thing are out and replaced with a differently named ability check?
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Post by: Ahtman
 warboss wrote:And apparently from the discussion over on enworld, skills as a named thing are out and replaced with a differently named ability check?
I imagine they are referring to "Fields of Lore", which replaces skills I think. Still just reading bits and pieces here and there as I do other things.
Intelligence measures your character's mental acuity and the ability to reason, but intelligent creatures are more then just naked intellect. Your character has a few specialized areas of knowledge as well. Each of these is referred to as a field of lore.
Cultural Lore
Forbidden Lore
Hobbyist Lore
Magical Lore
Military Lore
Natural Lore
Planar Lore
Political Lore
Religious Lore
Subterranean Lore
Trade Lore
Some are general, others you pick something that falls under the category and gain bonuses to it, there aren't ranks like 3/3.5. Military Lore you know about ancient battles, important figures, famous units, ect, but Cultural Lore you would select a specific culture. At least at this point this is how I understand it.
When you would gain an attribute point from leveling you can choose to trade that in for a Feat. Feats come slower, but are more encompassing. For instance Great-Weapon fighting gives you proficiency in all Martial Great Weapons, an extra free attack if you crit or drop an enemy to 0 HP, and Power Attack in one feat.
Humans get +1 to all attributes, but that is all they get. Half-Orcs get +2 Str, +1 Con, Advantage on Intimidate, and Dark Vision. Dwarves get a +1 to CON, but a list as long as my arm for racial benefits.
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Post by: Alfndrate
Ahtman wrote:The new playtest packet is out, for those keeping up on this sort of thing. So far I have discovered that Monks only gain Hit Points at level 1.*
*It is a copy/paste error saying that monks get d8+CON per level of Druid instead of per monk level.
Obviously this was intentional because no one likes monks. So you take level 1 as a monk, multiclass into a druid and gain double the HP 
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Post by: Ahtman
So far the Hawk Totem Barbarian is fairly popular as they take no damage from falling while raging.
"The battlefield below rages in chaos. From your perch on the command airship you can see the frost giant commander routing the capitol city troops. What do you do?" "I jump from the ship onto the frost giant."
Drop barbarian is best barbarian.
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Post by: Sasori
Ahtman wrote:So far the Hawk Totem Barbarian is fairly popular as they take no damage from falling while raging.
"The battlefield below rages in chaos. From your perch on the command airship you can see the frost giant commander routing the capitol city troops. What do you do?" "I jump from the ship onto the frost giant."
Drop barbarian is best barbarian.
This sounds incredibly awesome.
except for the Airship part.
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Post by: dementedwombat
Just referring to the discussion on the previous page, I agree that if you want to run "desert apocalypse" 4e might not be the best setting to do it in, although I am convinced it can be done. And now I'm actually getting around to reading through Dune I'm finding I want to run said desert apocalypse more and more.
Also, just to stick it to everybody who reflexively bans psionics (and the fact that Pathfinder doesn't even include any native psionic support) I am strongly considering playing a one off game where I ban magic, just because I can.
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Post by: Ahtman
 dementedwombat wrote:Just referring to the discussion on the previous page, I agree that if you want to run "desert apocalypse" 4e might not be the best setting to do it in, although I am convinced it can be done. And now I'm actually getting around to reading through Dune I'm finding I want to run said desert apocalypse more and more.
Also, just to stick it to everybody who reflexively bans psionics (and the fact that Pathfinder doesn't even include any native psionic support) I am strongly considering playing a one off game where I ban magic, just because I can.
If you want to do something like that I would recommend reading the Dark Sun 4E book. Lots of good ideas in there, including how to handle scarce food, desert weather, and such. Automatically Appended Next Post:
Riding in on air elementals?
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Post by: ProtoClone
Honestly we gave up after the first play test of D&D5e. We were not impressed with it because what we could gleam from it felt underwhelming.
While those of us in the group are not all in agrement of what editions are the best, we all agree that Gamma World 4e was the best thing WotC has done in a while.
I will be interested in it because it is D&D but honestly, I have moved on to other RPGs.
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Post by: Ahtman
Strangely, there have been a lot of changes since the first play test packet was released over a year ago (May 2012).
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Post by: adamsouza
 loota boy wrote:I think most of edition loyalty doesn't stem from the quality of the edition, but from which one people started with and what they have the most time invested in.
I agree with this 100%.
When I started running 2E, players whined about it. They were used to playing AD&D.
When I started running 3E, players whined about it. They had to learn about feats, and clerics would edged weapons, etc....
When I started running 4E, players whined about the changes, because they couldn't immediately jump in to playing, and magic items were nerfed.
When I started running Pathfinder, one of the players whined soo much, he insisted on running 2E. After making characters for 2E, he reread the rules to refamiliarize himself with them, and we remade the characters for 3.5 because after rereading the 2E rules the rosey nostalgia he had for it disappeared. A month later, after people read the pathfinder rules, we converted all the 3.5 characters to Pathfinder.
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Post by: Manchu
Yep, spot on there. The only time I haven't seen a lot of whinging about a new edition was with Pathfinder but it was hardly a new edition and my friends were too busy whinging about 4E.
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Post by: Forar
With my groups, it was the opposite. I started in AD&D, enjoyed it. Moved to 3E, and my group loved the improved balance between the classes. Moved to 4E and my group loved the improved balance between the classes and the tightened up game mechanics.
"The Internet" hates edition changes, but individuals and groups obviously make the move just fine, otherwise we'd all still be playing Chainmail.
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Post by: warboss
 Forar wrote:With my groups, it was the opposite. I started in AD&D, enjoyed it. Moved to 3E, and my group loved the improved balance between the classes. Moved to 4E and my group loved the improved balance between the classes and the tightened up game mechanics.
"The Internet" hates edition changes, but individuals and groups obviously make the move just fine, otherwise we'd all still be playing Chainmail.
That's kind of a broad and incorrect statement. My entire group disliked 4th and we didn't come to that conclusion by reading about it on the internet but rather by playing it. A sizable portion of the player base split into each camp and plenty are probably rather ambivalent to both . Alot of people switch to the new edition regardless of their feelings about the rules because its the supported edition that is easy to find new players to the hobby with. Its only with the last edition that players had the choice to continue as is with full quality support of a company associated so strongly with the D&D brand... and it showed in the sales numbers published by ICV2.
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Post by: Forar
warboss wrote: Forar wrote:With my groups, it was the opposite. I started in AD&D, enjoyed it. Moved to 3E, and my group loved the improved balance between the classes. Moved to 4E and my group loved the improved balance between the classes and the tightened up game mechanics.
"The Internet" hates edition changes, but individuals and groups obviously make the move just fine, otherwise we'd all still be playing Chainmail.
That's kind of a broad and incorrect statement. My entire group disliked 4th and we didn't come to that conclusion by reading about it on the internet but rather by playing it. A sizable portion of the player base split into each camp.
You seem to be misinterpreting me.
I'm not saying "only people on the internet hate 4E".
I'm saying that the internet is where people go to have thousand page vitriol filled monologues at each other about what way to play fantasy elves and dwarves is most fun/correct.
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Post by: adamsouza
Forar wrote:I'm saying that the internet is where people go to have thousand page vitriol filled monologues at each other about what way to play fantasy elves and dwarves is most fun/correct.
T shirt worthy message.
Found this 8 video review of D&D Next Playtest material on youtube http://youtu.be/CuyiVWANGi0
He's pretty good about pointing out differences in Next from previous editions, but possibly a bit fan boi in his enthusiam.
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Post by: Manchu
I've been watching those vides -- they seem pretty good, pointing out some good changes and some stuff that's still very problematic. Thanks for passing that on!
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Post by: Farseer Faenyin
I notice you make this comment as much as you can.
I have to say I don't agree with the sentiment at all. Are you saying with the way that 3.0 into 3.5 was attempting to make the classes more similar as it went along, 4th turning them into powers that were very similar was the logical step that would be made next?
I don't think allowing 6 different classes to have a power that does the exact same effect on a player other than HPs(Stunned, Dazed, Push, Pull, Slide...bleh) along with varied DMG amounts is anything logically taken from 3rd Edition or its semi-expansion of 3.5. Logically we all expect them to just balance the martial characters with more resonable later-level effects and abilities to make them on part with casters for situational usefulness sort of like Pathfinder did but without blanketing the whole of the class structure into these new 'Powers' that everybody shares. I don't know of a single person in my gaming groups, other gaming groups, or local Living Greyhawk players that consider 4th to have been 'Logical movement from 3.5'...all consider it a strong reboot of mechanics and concept.
Edit: My grammar fails annoy me...
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Post by: dementedwombat
I can see where he's coming from. From a perspective of what is important about the game they are very similar systems. I've never played any edition of D&D before 3.5, but from what I gather 3.5 is really a lot more combat focused than earlier editions with much more survivable heroes and more rules, but much better laid out and consistent rules.
4e takes all those philosophies I just described and ramps it up even moreso, to the point of being a miniature skirmish game with elaborate campaign rules in some cases (kind of ironic since D&D in general grew out of a tabletop wargame called Chainmail, now it's returning to its roots).
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Post by: Manchu
Yep, dementedwombat has the right idea. IMO, one of the most important changes introduced by 3.0/3.5 was making the concept of balance a central system goal (probably second only to the concept of a core mechanic). Third Edition handled this alright when in a limited situation: core classes versus core monsters. But it failed hard when it came to balance between core classes themselves over the long haul and especially with regard to all the splat. So D&D 4E took the promise of 3.0/3.5 -- this concept of balance -- and made it even more important. That's where the powers system comes from; trying to deliver on 3.5's promises.
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Post by: adamsouza
The Devs have admitted that a lot of the changes in 4E were experimented with in 3.5E.
Warlocks with at will attacks.
Book of five rings with combat feats that turned into class powers.
etc...
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Post by: Manchu
Do you mean Book of Nine Swords?
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Post by: warboss
I suspect that's what he means. That also happened to be the only core book for the entire 3/3.5 run that I didn't buy as I didn't like the mechanics presented... which obviously became the standard in 4e unfortunately for me.
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Post by: pretre
Heh, you bought Incarnum but balked at BoNS?
I bought them all. Argh.
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Post by: warboss
 pretre wrote:Heh, you bought Incarnum but balked at BoNS?
I bought them all. Argh.
I found some good things that I could use in Incarnum from my casual leafing through at the store standing by the new release shelf. I couldn't say the same thing about BONS either from my quick read through nor with a more detailed reading of a borrowed friend's book (who also didn't like it so didn't mind lending it out for an extended reading) who played in my campaign (and later I in his).
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Post by: Manchu
I hardly remember what it's like to go to the store and browse through the new D&D releases.
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Post by: pretre
warboss wrote: pretre wrote:Heh, you bought Incarnum but balked at BoNS?
I bought them all. Argh.
I found some good things that I could use in Incarnum from my casual leafing through at the store standing by the new release shelf. I couldn't say the same thing about BONS either from my quick read through nor with a more detailed reading of a borrowed friend's book (who also didn't like it so didn't mind lending it out for an extended reading) who played in my campaign (and later I in his).
Really? I was the opposite. I liked BoNS a lot more than Incarnum or Weapons of Legacy.
@Manchu: We just had a running tab with Amazon. I never actually browsed, but just bought. Ahh, the days before children.
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Post by: Manchu
I just meant that these days there are no new D&D releases. There are just re-releases of old things. That's supposed to change by month's end but TBH the product (Murder in Baldur's Gate) doesn't look that great.
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Post by: warboss
pretre wrote:
Really? I was the opposite. I liked BoNS a lot more than Incarnum or Weapons of Legacy.
Neither one was in my top half of favorite core supplements but my personal rule was that if I found around a dozen pages or more useful in a core book then I bought it as a DM. Most books qualified for that with 2-3 prestige classes, 2-3 pages of equipment, and then 4-5 pages of feats. I really didn't find anything in BONS that I wanted to use at all.
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Post by: dementedwombat
Oh man, Incarnum and Weapons of Legacy. I remember skimming through those as a little kid who had never actually played the game (for some reason my parents thought that letting me roam the bookstore was a good idea). I thought they were the most awesome thing ever.
I can still remember, the first D&D related thing I ever saw was a monster out of MM3 called the "summoning ooze". Opened a random book to a random page and there it was. To this day browsing the monster manuals is one of my favorite things to do in that game.
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Post by: Farseer Faenyin
dementedwombat wrote:I can see where he's coming from. From a perspective of what is important about the game they are very similar systems. I've never played any edition of D&D before 3.5, but from what I gather 3.5 is really a lot more combat focused than earlier editions with much more survivable heroes and more rules, but much better laid out and consistent rules.
4e takes all those philosophies I just described and ramps it up even moreso, to the point of being a miniature skirmish game with elaborate campaign rules in some cases (kind of ironic since D&D in general grew out of a tabletop wargame called Chainmail, now it's returning to its roots).
I don't think that makes 3.5 a 'logical step' for 4.0 more than any other edition change was. Each addition was more combat oriented, streamlined and fun to play(survivability). The overall rules changes from 3.5 to 4.0 of taking away the things that made spellcasters different from the martial characters was a complete change of pace that makes 3.5-4.0 one of the most shocking changes for most long-time D&D characters. The idea of playstyles being different between any of the characters is gone and the game has become a fundamental 'character play' system...HUGE difference from playing casters and smashers in 3.5.
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Post by: warboss
Sorry to interupt the Edition Cold War but anyone know if there is news on Next from gencon? I've been looking at the usual sources but haven't seen much.
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Post by: Manchu
 Farseer Faenyin wrote:The overall rules changes from 3.5 to 4.0 of taking away the things that made spellcasters different from the martial characters
You're looking at it backwards. It's not that 4E took away things for casters; 4E gave every class the kind of play style 3.5 gave casters. Next. Logical. Step. Not as such. Bruce Cordell is joining Monte Cook Games, however.
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Post by: warboss
Manchu wrote: Farseer Faenyin wrote:The overall rules changes from 3.5 to 4.0 of taking away the things that made spellcasters different from the martial characters
You're looking at it backwards. It's not that 4E took away things for casters; 4E gave every class the kind of play style 3.5 gave casters. Next. Logical. Step.
Chocolate is a frequent main ingredient of restaurant desserts. Lots of people like dessert. Restaurant soups, appetizers, and main dishes should therefore taste like chocolate following the "Next. Logical. Step." reasoning you're presenting.
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Post by: Manchu
That's the worst analogy I've seen in a long, long time.
Again, one of the most significant changes introduced by Third Edition was the centrality of the concept of balance. But this was largely limited to balancing the party against monsters in combat encounters. Classes were not balanced against one another and this resulted in a lot of complaints. Fourth Edition's next logical step was carrying the idea of balance forward as between classes. Their method for doing so was to give every class, not just casters, a "pick from a menu of powers" play style.
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Post by: pretre
Manchu wrote:That's the worst analogy I've seen in a long, long time.
And he spends a lot of time moderating posts, so that's saying something. 4th ed was all about balancing everything. The CO (Character Optimization) boards were much less exciting for 4th ed than 3.5/3. No Pun-Pun, no COD-zilla, no one-shot 250 damage level 5 chargers. The balance was one of the good things about 4th: Everyone had a job and could do it roughly equally well.
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Post by: Manchu
And that makes a lot of sense, given the emphasis on balancing party level against encounter level in Third. The problem is, if the classes aren't balanced against each other then you can't really say you have balanced the monsters against the party, either. This was a big goal of 4E and, whether you like the way WotC addressed it or not, they were more successful regarding this goal in 4E than Third.
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Post by: warboss
Manchu wrote:That's the worst analogy I've seen in a long, long time.
Again, one of the most significant changes introduced by Third Edition was the centrality of the concept of balance. But this was largely limited to balancing the party against monsters in combat encounters. Classes were not balanced against one another and this resulted in a lot of complaints. Fourth Edition's next logical step was carrying the idea of balance forward as between classes. Their method for doing so was to give every class, not just casters, a "pick from a menu of powers" play style.
No, it just carries the train of thought over to a different subject to illustrate how bad the underlying logic in making all previously disparate things function in the same fashion was. During 3 and 3.5, I played over 40 levels worth of characters (1-14 was my longest single stretch with the rest to at least 8th level) and DM'ed players through another 15 or so. I ran a cleric, barbarian, sorcerer, paladin, and rogue and enjoyed them all. I liked playing spellcasters. I liked playing Paladins, barbarians, and rogues as well. I don't, however, enjoy playing Paladin/barbarian/rogue classes mechanically as if they were a spellcaster.
I can't blame WOTC for trying to balance things but they shouldn't have jumped into the deep end right away without checking for sharks first. Star Wars Saga (despite the overpowered mechanic of attacking with skills via Jedi and later other classes) was a good evolution of 3.5 that I embraced but 4e took that incremental change and doubled down on it to the exclusion of everything else. That said, I don't think WOTC should abandon the 4e mechanics and design theory as completely as they abandoned 3/3.5 (and yes I know you disagree with that statement as you see it as a "logical" extension). They've already lost permanently some portion of the Pathfinder playerbase regardless of a return to earlier mechanics and they risk alienating the 4e die hards by refusing to acknowledge what that portion of the community feels was good about the edition. I don't know if there is a perfect solution to the D&D 5e problem... but I do know that after 4e I won't simply preorder the core books sight unseen. After investing so much in 3/3.5 and D&D minis to just see them dropped unceremoniously (along with Star Wars saga and its minis), I'll wait for the final retain version to hit the market before giving it a readthrough. I'll still try to keep a feel on the pulse of the community through threads like this but I don't have the motivation to download the playtest materials myself and try to wrangle up a local group.
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Post by: Manchu
warboss wrote:No, it just carries the train of thought over to a different subject to illustrate how bad the underlying logic in making all previously disparate things function in the same fashion was.
Not really. The problem is you are comparing the category of D&D classes with all categories of a meal. Fighters are not to an appetizer as Wizards are to dessert. That is why your analogy is terrible. It would be much better to say, many desserts are made with chocolate but that doesn't mean all desserts should be. After all, that's a lot closer to the point you're actually making. And I get that you don't like chocolate desserts after every meal -- er, the 4E power system. But that isn't the question to hand. We're talking about whether the power system was a logical conclusion from WotC's experience with Third. Third did not only offer a rote concept of balance. The concept itself implicates that heroes should be able to handle the encounters they face; i.e., they become more "heroic" or what I call "fantasy super heroes." And so not only did 4E run with the concept of balance itself, it also ran with the idea of heroic characters. Giving everyone powers as a way to sharpen balance is a totally logical reaction to 3.5 ... which is why it started happening in 3.5. Bo9S was only the most explicit example. All the splat does the same thing. Automatically Appended Next Post: warboss wrote:I'll still try to keep a feel on the pulse of the community through threads like this
I'd recommend watching the YT vids adamsouza linked. They're not just impressions but actual discussion of mechanics.
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Post by: warboss
Manchu wrote: warboss wrote:No, it just carries the train of thought over to a different subject to illustrate how bad the underlying logic in making all previously disparate things function in the same fashion was.
Not really. The problem is you are comparing the category of D&D classes with all categories of a meal. Fighters are not to an appetizer as Wizards are to dessert. That is why your analogy is terrible. It would be much better to say, many desserts are made with chocolate but that doesn't mean all desserts should be. After all, that's a lot closer to the point you're actually making.
On that we can agree but I don't think I communicated my point as clearly as I hoped. It's not that fighters are an appetizer to the main course (and the derogatory tone that implies) but rather that they're all important different courses that ideally work together to form a complete and enjoyable meal. They all have their part to play and there are important differences between them and some people skip some or prefer others. My main complaint with 4e is that it took one popular aspect (some chocolately balance) and turned each course into dessert to incorporate that aspect. YMMV. I'll be the first to admit that 3/3.5 had its issues (splat spam and powercreep, overly complicated skill system, and imbalance between classes as well as between classes and their prestige variants, etc) but I enjoyed the comparatively different playstyles it allowed you to experience. To me, that difference was sacrificed despite good intentions to the noble goal of balance. It was just too much of a good thing. Either way, this analogy is making me hungry!
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Post by: Manchu
Oh I understood you weren't trivializing the non-casters. Put it this way, fighters are not to savory portions as wizards are to sweet ones. Third edition tried to do balance but largely failed (past level 10 or so, just thinking core here). Fourth succeeded to a greater extent by making non-casters as "glowy" as casters. This was the next logical step precisely because Third introduced balance as a function of increasing PC power levels relative to monsters. Fourth just took it (much) further, increasing class power levels relative to each other. Whether it's enjoyable to any given gamer or not is a separate question.
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Post by: Farseer Faenyin
Manchu wrote: Farseer Faenyin wrote:The overall rules changes from 3.5 to 4.0 of taking away the things that made spellcasters different from the martial characters
You're looking at it backwards. It's not that 4E took away things for casters; 4E gave every class the kind of play style 3.5 gave casters. Next. Logical. Step.
If you think I was looking at it backwards, and going the other way suddenly makes it logical, you and Spock certainly won't be getting along anytime soon.
4E certainly didn't give 'every class the play style 3.5 gave casters'. 3.5 casters are nothing like 4E classes at all. 4E gave every class a new playstyle where they are all the same and NOTHING like past characters except in name. There is no way an Encounter Power of Fireball is like a Wizard in 3.5 who could toss down 3-4 a day if he wanted to...not even close.
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Post by: pretre
Except Warlocks and BoNS and some of the other splat books that had X/Use per day and At Will powers. At Will, Encounter, Daily is nothing new. Making a class that just does that? Nothing new. In fact, Paladins have been like that forever. Smites, Lay on Hands, etc were all daily, encounter and they always had Melee Basic.
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Post by: Manchu
This is kind of why I advocate looking at editions from a design stand point rather than zooming in on specific mechanics, like how a fireball works. The issue of Third Edition was leveraging balance to make PC more heroic. But they totally spaced on balancing classes against one another. This spiraled way out of control with splat. Third Edition splat is the addition of more and more and more powers to PCs. Even prestige classes that do not grant casting to non-casters often grant supernatural, etc abilities. It became a joke, as pretre alluded to above. WotC's answer was logical: yes, let's keep our superhero PC and let's keep all the cool stuff they can do -- but let's use one currency so we can keep it balanced.
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Post by: pretre
Manchu wrote:This is kind of why I advocate looking at editions from a design stand point rather than zooming in on specific mechanics, like how a fireball works.
Agreed, it is hilarious to watch when people lay out what they don't like about X edition and you show that it has been like that since 1982 or something.
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Post by: Manchu
That's why I'm making a big deal about core mechanic and balance. These are things that did not exist in previous editions, either not as central concepts (Rule Cyclopedia had very complicated optional encounter balancing) or not at all.
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Post by: pretre
Manchu wrote:That's why I'm making a big deal about core mechanic and balance. These are things that did not exist in previous editions, either not as central concepts (Rule Cyclopedia had very complicated optional encounter balancing) or not at all.
It also brushes past the annoying repetitive arguments about X is bad because of X and gets down to what the versions actually were.
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Post by: warboss
pretre wrote: Manchu wrote:This is kind of why I advocate looking at editions from a design stand point rather than zooming in on specific mechanics, like how a fireball works.
Agreed, it is hilarious to watch when people lay out what they don't like about X edition and you show that it has been like that since 1982 or something.
It's more accurate to say that it has been around in an limited form occasionally throughout the years as a select part of certain classes since 1982 instead of the central focus of every class in 4e.
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Post by: pretre
warboss wrote:It's more accurate to say that it has been around in an limited form occasionally throughout the years as a select part of certain classes since 1982 instead of the central focus of every class in 4e.
I don't know about occasionally. Paladins have been At Will, Encounter, Daily since the 80's and they are pretty central. Monks and Druids are very similar since that time period as well.
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Post by: Ahtman
Farseer Faenyin wrote:4E gave every class a new playstyle where they are all the same and NOTHING like past characters except in name.
I have trouble believing someone that actually played the game would think that all the classes played the same. The game certainly has areas for criticism, but that one is pretty far out there, and certainly not based on any kind reality.
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Post by: Manchu
Yeah, the don't play alike ... in the sense of them all having different powers (and therefore roles). I think he meant, however, that they all have powers in the first place.
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Post by: Ahtman
Manchu wrote:Yeah, the don't play alike ... in the sense of them all having different powers (and therefore roles). I think he meant, however, that they all have powers in the first place.
That seems a silly argument, though, complaining that all the classes get something to do, but then I never understood how people would argue that "3 uses a day" was radically different from an encounter power, or that "once a day" wasn't a Daily. 3/3.5 had all that stuff, it just didn't lay it out in the same manner. You could just as easily turn 90% or more of 3/3.5 into Power cards that looked nearly identical.
Picked up Dragonspear Castle today and so far I am pretty happy with it: nice thick, glossy pages, full color, and lots of artwork. I was surprised the Campaign was in the front of the book with the rules in the back, though I am not quite sure why. It just feels like the rules should be first!
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Post by: Manchu
Ahtman wrote:3/3.5 had all that stuff, it just didn't lay it out in the same manner.
Bud, you're preaching to the choir. Remember me, the guy who thinks 4E was the next logical step after 3.5? It wasn't the only possible step mind you, as D&D Next proves. But at the time, it was very logical.
Ahtman wrote:Picked up Dragonspear Castle today and so far I am pretty happy with it: nice thick, glossy pages, full color, and lots of artwork. I was surprised the Campaign was in the front of the book with the rules in the back, though I am not quite sure why. It just feels like the rules should be first!
Yeah that is weird. Okay, so can you post the TOC or something?
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Post by: Ahtman
Like a scan or just typed out? 
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Post by: Manchu
Yeah, sorry -- you're probably in a hotel right now. It can wait. So how do the rules look then? Are they basically the same as the current playtest packet?
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Post by: Ahtman
Manchu wrote:Yeah, sorry -- you're probably in a hotel right now. It can wait. So how do the rules look then? Are they basically the same as the current playtest packet?
Getting ready to head back out, but I will try to do a bit of a write up later.
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Post by: dementedwombat
pretre wrote:4th ed was all about balancing everything. The CO (Character Optimization) boards were much less exciting for 4th ed than 3.5/3. No Pun-Pun, no COD-zilla, no one-shot 250 damage level 5 chargers. The balance was one of the good things about 4th: Everyone had a job and could do it roughly equally well.
I've spent a good deal of time on the CO boards (had a bunch of players new to 4e and wanted to see how they should be building their characters to help them along without just giving them CO builds). If I recall correctly they actually did manage to break 4e. That build was called Oppenheimer, it leveraged a ton of abilities from a bunch of different books to basically create a walking (flying actually) acid cloud that can theoretically pump out infinite damage every turn.
That said, doing infinite damage in about a close burst 4-5 once per turn is pretty tame for an "ultimate game breaking build" compared to the stuff you saw for 3.5.
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Post by: pretre
Yeah, that has nothing on Pun Pun.
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Post by: adamsouza
Those uber builds were fun exercises, but no one in their right mind ever plays those wacky builds throught hte gimp levels to be uber at high levels. Even if they wanted to the Dungeon Master should have known better than to allow them to do so.
The most extreme 4E build I ever played was a barbarian that got temporary hit points when he hit something with his at will attack, when he got hit, and when he killed something. He would walk into a mob of minions and his temporary hit point totals would grow faster than any damage they could put out. He also had the daily that restored hafl his hit point total.
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Post by: Cheesecat
He wasn't stacking his temporary hp from different sources was he/she? As you can only use temporary hit points from a single source.
TEMPORARY HIT POINTS
✦ Not Real Hit Points: Temporary hit points aren’t real
hit points. They’re a layer of insulation that attacks
have to get through before they start doing damage
to you. Don’t add temporary hit points to your
current hit points (if your current hit points are 0, you
still have 0 when you receive temporary hit points).
Keep track of them as a separate pool of hit points.
✦ Don’t Count toward Maximum: Temporary hit
points don’t count when you compare your current
hit points to your maximum hit points, when you
determine whether you’re bloodied, or for other
effects that depend on your current hit points.
✦ Lose Temporary Hit Points First: When you take
damage, subtract it from your temporary hit points.
If you take more damage than your temporary hit
points, extra damage reduces your current hit points.
✦ Don’t Add Together: If you get temporary hit
points from different sources, use the higher value as
your temporary hit point total instead of adding the
values together.
✦ Last until You Rest: Your temporary hit points last
until they’re reduced to 0 by damage or until you
take a rest.
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Post by: warboss
It appears the final D&D Next playtest packet will go out in September... sounds like a release for Gencon 2014.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?340143-Final-playtest-packet-due-in-mid-September
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Post by: Dr. What
Well that's interesting.
I finally coaxed enough people to try out next and everybody seems to be quite satisfied (my group is a mix of complete newcomers, 3.5 E lovers (who keep griping that Clerics have been nerfed) and 4 E fans.
I find that combat is relatively straightforward, which reminds me of my LotR SBG days. It also seems to be very easy for new DMs to use.
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Post by: dementedwombat
Quick question, are they still including a set of rules for combat without minis/maps? I remember some of my friends from college (all my 4e players actually) tried that and after about half an encounter the GM said "you're all just picturing a grid in your head aren't you", everybody agreed and they started using minis again.
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Post by: adamsouza
 Cheesecat wrote:He wasn't stacking his temporary hp from different sources was he/she? As you can only use temporary hit points from a single source.
Yes, he was stacking them. We missed the part where they didn't stack. Automatically Appended Next Post: dementedwombat wrote:Quick question, are they still including a set of rules for combat without minis/maps? I remember some of my friends from college (all my 4e players actually) tried that and after about half an encounter the GM said "you're all just picturing a grid in your head aren't you", everybody agreed and they started using minis again.
You do not NEED seperate rules for combat with and without maps/miniatures.
You either play with maps and miniatures and know where everything is, or you play without maps and minatures, just like you did before 3E, and your thief is always miraculously in posistion to backstab stuff 
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Post by: Dr. What
 adamsouza wrote:
You do not NEED seperate rules for combat with and without maps/miniatures.
You either play with maps and miniatures and know where everything is, or you play without maps and minatures, just like you did before 3E, and your thief is always miraculously in posistion to backstab stuff
Now I've got to ask:
Which of these two options do people following this thread prefer?
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Post by: dementedwombat
I roll with maps and minis just because it's what I've always used and I'm most comfortable with it.
I suppose abstract combat could be done (using a system that's not D&D 3.5+), but I've always enjoyed the idea of combat as a tactical exercise too much for me to prefer it I think.
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Post by: Galen
Cheesecat wrote:
You either play with maps and miniatures and know where everything is, or you play without maps and minatures, just like you did before 3E, and your thief is always miraculously in posistion to backstab stuff
As of the last released playtest rules there is NO FLANKING in Next rules so positioning becomes less important. Now, with the current rogue pregen having an ally adjacent to the enemy is all you need for sneak attack. It's rules making maps less necessary.
Dr. What wrote: adamsouza wrote:
You do not NEED seperate rules for combat with and without maps/miniatures.
You either play with maps and miniatures and know where everything is, or you play without maps and minatures, just like you did before 3E, and your thief is always miraculously in posistion to backstab stuff
Now I've got to ask:
Which of these two options do people following this thread prefer?
I would not use separate add-on rules for maps/miniatures. I want the base rules to be playable on a map. People have been using minis to play D&D since 1st ed. In 3rd edition I used maps in about 1 in 5 combat encounters. 4th edition obviously pushed that up to 95% of combats. I DM for D&D Encounters and Living Forgotten Realms, and maps really help players understand what is going on. I'm fine going back to 2nd-3rd edition levels of mapping but it is going to give me major headaches when dealing with new players or just running for strangers at stores or conventions. Automatically Appended Next Post: The way Wizards has handled D&D 4E and the transition to Next as a company angers me greatly, but I will try to separate that from my thoughts on the editions.
If I had to describe D&D Next I would say it is a hybrid of 2nd and 3/3.5 editions more than anything else. I don't see anything that screams 1st Ed. to me and I don't recognize much of anything from 4E either.
Wizards wants an edition that makes everyone happy. I don't believe it is possible. I have heard people say that the wizard class SHOULD be more powerful than fighters because they get magic and that is what fantasy, and D&D means to them. I see no middle ground between that and the "every class should make an even contribution" crowd.
As for Next as it stands, I can see potential, but there are plenty of things that still bother me. That isn't too different than any edition of D&D. They all have their flaws.
-I don't like the current skill system for Next. I dislike picking skills at level one and being done forever. 4E skills weren't any better for this. The 3rd Ed. skill system, on the other hand, made me feel like my character was evolving each level as I adjusted my skill point allocations.
-Spellcasters (and other ranged attackers) have it too easy. IMHO for vancian magic to exist in any usable form there needs to be an easy way to interrupt spellcasters. If that Fireball can take out a dozen city guard, then one skilled archer with a readied arrow should be able to stop the wizard from casting. In Next spells that require concentration are not interrupted by damage at all and spellcasting doesn't even provoke an attack of opportunity. Wizards have at-will attack spells now, with a similar number of daily spells to 2nd/3rd ed. They are giving the wizards back much of their lost power, but didn't give back their weakness. Bow users are in a similar boat in that their attacks also don't provoke enemy attacks anymore.
-Overall the core Next system seems alright. I feel neutral about the advantage/disadvantage thing. They are going back to feet measurements instead of squares (good.)
I've stewed over this for months and now I've forgotten half my thoughts. Hopefully I can add to the conversation moving forward.
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Post by: Manchu
Dr. What wrote: adamsouza wrote:
You do not NEED seperate rules for combat with and without maps/miniatures.
You either play with maps and miniatures and know where everything is, or you play without maps and minatures, just like you did before 3E, and your thief is always miraculously in posistion to backstab stuff
Now I've got to ask:
Which of these two options do people following this thread prefer?
I would never play any version of Third (including Pathfinder) or Fourth without mat&minis. The rules of both of those editions clearly assume you will use them, although 4E is the only one honest about it. I think it's easy enough to play any other edition entirely in the theater of the mind.
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Post by: warboss
Manchu wrote: Dr. What wrote: adamsouza wrote:
You do not NEED seperate rules for combat with and without maps/miniatures.
You either play with maps and miniatures and know where everything is, or you play without maps and minatures, just like you did before 3E, and your thief is always miraculously in posistion to backstab stuff
Now I've got to ask:
Which of these two options do people following this thread prefer?
I would never play any version of Third (including Pathfinder) or Fourth without mat&minis. The rules of both of those editions clearly assume you will use them, although 4E is the only one honest about it. I think it's easy enough to play any other edition entirely in the theater of the mind.
I also only tried playing 3/3.5 a couple of times without minis and the players balked (and frankly it was a bit odd feeling). I'm not sure what you mean by it not being "honest" about it when IIRC most every combat diagram shows a combat grid and the first section of the PHB combat section is devoted to the battle grid and flat out recommends you use minis and a map.
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Post by: adamsouza
I'm sorry , I just don't get the need.
I love maps and miniatures, and I own tons of them, but I don't use them all the time. To play without them you do just like you did in earlier versions of D&D, and every other RPG, where you rely on the Game Master to tell you who is affected by AOEs, etc... Maps and minatures make it easier to keep track of, but we're still talking about imaginary battles being held in our heads.
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Post by: Ahtman
warboss wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by it not being "honest" about it when IIRC most every combat diagram shows a combat grid and the first section of the PHB combat section is devoted to the battle grid and flat out recommends you use minis and a map.
Fourth Edition is up front about the need for it, and that it was designed with it in mind, whereas 3/3.5 needs just about as much, all the rules are shown (as you say) on a map, but it tries to act like it is an option even though it is just as thoroughly designed around using minis as 4E ever was.
The Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle has the most up to date version of the Next playtest rules, it just lacks the character creation rules and comes with pregen characters. If you have the character creation rules from the latest playtest packet you can easily have players make their own characters. I'll post a more detailed list of contest later.
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Post by: Galen
Ahtman wrote:
Fourth Edition is up front about the need for it, and that it was designed with it in mind, whereas 3/3.5 needs just about as much, all the rules are shown (as you say) on a map, but it tries to act like it is an option even though it is just as thoroughly designed around using minis as 4E ever was.
I strongly disagree with this statement. The tactical requirements of 3/3.5 aren't anywhere near that of 4E. When I DMed in 3.5 many, many battles were adjudicated simply, without the need for a grid. Grid combat in 3.5 IS just an option. I often found it useful in complicated battles, but far from necessary. 4E, with its at-will pushes, AOES, and auras is meant to be a tactical tabletop miniatures game in a way no other edition has touched.
It has been mentioned a couple times on this thread, but I will say it again. Older editions of D&D require the players to trust the DM to adjudicate and interpret the rules fairly. How many enemies can I catch in my fireball? Will I hit any allies with this burst? Is there any cover I can get to this round? As editions went on the rules became more codified and "combat focused" Before 4E my experiences with organized D&D play was primarily negative, because the game experience varied so widely from DM to DM. I ran into too many convention DMs bringing their house rules, optional rules, or illogical (to me) rules interpretations to the table. It felt like I had to relearn how to play with every new DM. 4E games on the other hand (run with published adventures) tends to give a much more predictable game experience. This allows for situations like the Encounters program, where my FLGS has up to 5 tables running simultaneously any given Wednesday. It is casual play and not ever player shows up every week, but we feel confident moving players from table to table as needed because we are all playing the same adventure and are running the same encounter at the same time. 4E's strict rules structure is a big part of making this possible. Having maps also cuts out the "I thought I was safe from XYZ.", "I wouldn't have been there if I had realized that", or "that would have been obvious to my character, you should have mentioned it"
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Post by: AegisGrimm
I prefer to play games that use minis for the combat. Other than that, it's in the mind's eye, like during normal roleplaying in towns/settlements or while exploring/ travelling.
Using minis and maps helps visualize the surroundings better without having to remember specific things, and it gives a nice visual of how you are working alongside other team members.
I don't have a lot of experience with 3.5, but I once PCed in a campaign that was run using FantasyCraft (pretty close to 3.5), and without using miniatures the combat scenes were stilted and horrible. It was not fun constantly asking the GM how many monsters were close enough to allow my melee attacks to affect multiple enemies.
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Post by: Manchu
 Galen wrote:Older editions of D&D require the players to trust the DM to adjudicate and interpret the rules fairly.
That's very true; but it must be said, Third is not one of the "older editions" in this regard.
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Post by: Farseer Faenyin
What I mean by them playing alike is that all abilities have the same core mechanics with very little difference except some are melee range and some are not. Mage and Warriors have Burst effects.
Pretre can grandeur all he wants that I'm looking at the small picture and not the whole of the effect simply because of the Paladin had powers he could use all the time, and such. I know of these mechanics. Druids could shift as well with similar function.
Still far fetched to think that 4E is a 'logical evolution' of what was building in 3rd Edition.
If we want to, as Pretre says, "get down to what the versions actually were"....there still FAR more similarity between a Wizard and Warrior in 4E than there ever was. And 3rd didn't bring them 'closer' in any respect save for overall character building of Base Attack, Saves, Skills and Feats.
There is no logical jump from that type of similarity to 'Lets make all classes maintain powers that can be used in set conditions of timing' which is the hallmark system that 4E is based on.
Again, I have played and like all editions and can certainly see the pros and cons of all of them. 4th Edition established the game as a VERY streamlined combat system that could accomplish larger battles in much less time than in previous editions(at least for players without complete understanding of all game/class mechanics).
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Post by: Manchu
Your post boils down to "nuh uh." In point of fact, most of the 3E splat is devoted to, by feat or prestige class, conferring what would be known as powers in 4E. As I mentioned, Bo9S was simply the most explicit example -- it was it's own logical next step from the Complete ____ line of books and 4E logically followed from it.
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Post by: pretre
Manchu wrote:Your post boils down to "nuh uh." In point of fact, most of the 3E splat is devoted to, by feat or prestige class, conferring what would be known as powers in 4E. As I mentioned, Bo9S was simply the most explicit example -- it was it's own logical next step from the Complete ____ line of books and 4E logically followed from it.
Thanks, Manchu! I was going to respond since he's mostly beating up on me, but I figured I'd wait a couple for you to cover it more succinctly.
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Post by: Ahtman
Contents of Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle:
Chapter 1: Daggerford Campaign
4 linked adventures that take characters from levels 1-10
Chapter 2: How to Play ~ sames as most recent playtest
Chapter 3: Magic ~ Rules and Spell Lists
Up to level 5 spells for Divine and Arcane, around 100 spells and their descriptions
Chapter 4: Equipment
Chapter 5: DM Guide
Chapter 6: Bestiary
59 pages with about 2 creatures per page
Appendix: Pregen Characters ~ Each character is 2 pages and laid in a style similar to Essentials
Human Cleric
Dwarven Fighter (great weapon)
Human Fighter (sword and shield)
Elf Mage*
Human Mage*
Halfling Rogue
Full color with artwork throughout on think paper and nicely bound. For the price it is a really good package.
* I haven't read the newest playtest Wizard description, but I saw in this that at level 10 Wizards gain something called Permanency, which allows them to trade all their first levels spells for a year to permanently enchant a set of armor, a weapon, or turn a level 1 spell into an At-Will spell.
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Post by: pretre
Oh crap, is that the thing that was coming out at Gencon that I said I wanted to try to get someone to pick up for me?
Completely forgot.
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Post by: Manchu
Thanks for posting that Ahtman. Sounds like a great deal ... although nothing about it tempts me for the $30 - 90 it's currently bringing on eBay.
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Post by: warboss
Cool, thanks for the content rundown. Did you happen to preorder it or did they preview the mini that comes with it?
When you pre-order your copy of Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle you will also receive a free collectible D&D miniature designed by Gale Force Nine
https://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4news/20130524
Although the play part of the open playtesting is over soon, I'd suspect that product would get more people testing as it seems to provde (from your contents) a relatively encapsulated adventure complete with characters. I'd be curious to see if it incorporates aspects of the september rules release or if its strictly from the june packet.
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Post by: Ahtman
I did get the Paladin mini with my pre-order, with his pimp cane and everything. He is one of the characters in the campaign I believe. They had him in the mini-case with all the other minis being previewed. The normal beholder was pretty cool, but that Eye Tyrant was massive.
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Post by: streamdragon
Manchu wrote:As I mentioned, Bo9S was simply the most explicit example -- it was it's own logical next step from the Complete ____ line of books and 4E logically followed from it.
I remember when that book came out, one of the players in my group picked it up. He then proceeded to regale me with how broken the book was, explaining that fighters would suddenly replace wizards. When I asked him to explain, he pointed out a power that allowed fighters to "add 50 damage" or some static number as a high level power. I just sort of shook my head, checked "Harm" on my list of memorized spells and went on with my day.
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Post by: Manchu
If we reverse your anecdote, we'll have the story of how Bo9S was conceived.
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Post by: dementedwombat
Yep, I remember Bo9S hate when it first came out. the WotC "play by post forum" 3.5 recruitment threads all explicitly banned it. For a while at the end of 3.5 it replaced psionics as the holder of the coveted "most arbitrarily banned system" award.
I also remember arguments about the warlock being massively overpowered since it could do so much different stuff as often as it wanted to. Funny because this class came out in the same book as the battlemage, which basically took all the worst features of a caster and a martial character and mashed them together (come to think of it I never did get to play my grade school "dream character" of a warforged battlemage...)
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Post by: Ahtman
The current 3.5 game I am in started with the DM saying 'you can use anything but Psionics and Bo9S'.
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Post by: pretre
Ahtman wrote:The current 3.5 game I am in started with the DM saying 'you can use anything but Psionics and Bo9S'.
In reality, I found Bo9S pretty fun and balanced. We only used it a couple times, but oh well.
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Post by: warboss
dementedwombat wrote:Yep, I remember Bo9S hate when it first came out. the WotC "play by post forum" 3.5 recruitment threads all explicitly banned it. For a while at the end of 3.5 it replaced psionics as the holder of the coveted "most arbitrarily banned system" award.
It's not arbitrary if a large segment of the playerbase doesn't like the mechanics it uses or the power level it introduces. Something doesn't have to have your personal approval to be meaningful nor does your disapproval make it arbitrary. Considering that sentiment carried over significantly to 4e in general, it should have been a bit of a warning/red flag to WOTC.
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Post by: pretre
warboss wrote:It's not arbitrary if a large segment of the playerbase doesn't like the mechanics it uses or the power level it introduces.
Citation needed.
Just as with Psionics, in my experience, a lot of folks banned it because they didn't understand it rather than not liking it for any real reason.
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Post by: warboss
pretre wrote: warboss wrote:It's not arbitrary if a large segment of the playerbase doesn't like the mechanics it uses or the power level it introduces.
Citation needed.
Just as with Psionics, in my experience, a lot of folks banned it because they didn't understand it rather than not liking it for any real reason.
You want a citation for a significant segment of the playerbase not liking 4e mechanics?
http://www.paizo.com
As for psionics, I bought both the 3rd and 3.5 versions of the psionics books and made an informed decision on not including them. There was no lack of understanding involved.
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Post by: Manchu
I got to play a character out of Bo9S. I thought it was great, a real breath of fresh air. I got to play a Psion in 3.5, too, but only for a couple of sessions so I didn't form too much of an impression. Struck me as basically a wizard.
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Post by: pretre
No and no. I wanted a citation that a significant segment of the player base didn't like the mechanics that Bo9S used or the power level Bo9S introduced. That was what you said and what I responded to.
As for the success of Paizo, that has more to do with people liking third ed than disliking 4th ed, imo, but that's a completely different subject and not related to the citation I requested.
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Post by: warboss
Manchu wrote:I got to play a character out of Bo9S. I thought it was great, a real breath of fresh air. I got to play a Psion in 3.5, too, but only for a couple of sessions so I didn't form too much of an impression. Struck me as basically a wizard.
And that's perfectly fine. It's completely ok for you to like something that I don't. The whole community doesn't have to be in agreement as frankly a group consensus would stifle new game mechanics and development.
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Post by: pretre
Manchu wrote:I got to play a character out of Bo9S. I thought it was great, a real breath of fresh air.
Personally, I think Bo9S gave 3.5 what it needed without being 4E. It gave fighters something to do other than attack repeatedly.
Now, I happen to like 4E, so I don't mind that they extended it to everyone, but having the option to use it or not in 3.5 was really nice.
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Post by: Manchu
warboss wrote:And that's perfectly fine. It's completely ok for you to like something that I don't. The whole community doesn't have to be in agreement as frankly a group consensus would stifle new game mechanics and development.
Thanks? Also the sky is blue and water is wet, right? Automatically Appended Next Post: pretre wrote:\I think Bo9S gave 3.5 what it needed without being 4E
I don't think 3.5 non-casters are unplayable or anything -- except for at high levels around the table with consummate power gamers and min/maxers.
Another thing I really loved about Bo9S was that it basically a mini-campaign that you could drop into an ongoing one.
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Post by: warboss
pretre wrote: No and no. I wanted a citation that a significant segment of the player base didn't like the mechanics that Bo9S used or the power level Bo9S introduced. That was what you said and what I responded to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tome_of_Battle I'd check amazon's reviews as well but the entirety of the amazon site seems down for me (although not the rest of the internet so it's a problem on their end).
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Post by: pretre
There's no source to the statements listed there. So still: Citation Needed. The only part that is cited is that some of the mechanics of ToB were used in 4E and the reference for that part is to the front page of EN World, which is useless. Not to mention that no one argues that the mechanics were carried over.
So again, Citation that a significant segment of the player base didn't like the mechanics that Bo9S used or the power level Bo9S introduced.
Just because you didn't like something, doesn't mean that everyone else didn't. Unless you consider yourself to be a significant segment.
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Post by: warboss
pretre wrote:
There's no source to the statements listed there. So still: Citation Needed. The only part that is cited is that some of the mechanics of ToB were used in 4E and the reference for that part is to the front page of EN World, which is useless. Not to mention that no one argues that the mechanics were carried over.
So again, Citation that a significant segment of the player base didn't like the mechanics that Bo9S used or the power level Bo9S introduced.
Just because you didn't like something, doesn't mean that everyone else didn't. Unless you consider yourself to be a significant segment.
You're being ridiculous. What do you want? An official statement from WOTC that some people didn't like it? You're not going to get one. Why don't you on the other hand prove that a large segment of the population didn't have an issue with it? You're not going to find anything more definitive than I would which is anecdotal evidence from at best local gaming groups. In the end, it's obvious that I'm not going to convince you in either case and frankly I don't care.
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Post by: Ahtman
Following up on my earlier statement, no one else in the group would care if we used Bo9S, so in this group, I wouldn't say a significant amount of our group didn't like it, just the DM.
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Post by: pretre
warboss wrote:You're being ridiculous. What do you want? An official statement from WOTC that some people didn't like it? You're not going to get one.
Nope, I simply want you to back up your statement or change it. You said:
"It's not arbitrary if a large segment of the playerbase doesn't like the mechanics it uses or the power level it introduces. "
Which means that you have some knowledge of what a large segment of the player base thinks. I asked for a citation. If instead, you had said:
"It's not arbitrary because I don't like the mechanics it uses or the power level it introduces." I wouldn't have said anything, since that is your opinion.
Why don't you on the other hand prove that a large segment of the population didn't have an issue with it?
Because I am not making declarative statements speaking for a large segment of the population. I'm speaking for myself and my experience.
You're not going to find anything more definitive than I would which is anecdotal evidence from at best local gaming groups. In the end, it's obvious that I'm not going to convince you in either case and frankly I don't care.
Aha, so best not to make declarative statements that cannot be supported by fact then.
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Post by: dementedwombat
Just to follow up, the Amazon entry for Tomb of Battle has 37 reviews. The average is 4.3 out of 5 and nobody has rated it a 1.
Not really a big enough sample to be statistically significant, but maybe better than "my group likes/doesn't like it"
http://www.amazon.com/Tome-Battle-Dungeons-Dragons-Roleplaying/dp/0786939222/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376943379&sr=8-1&keywords=tomb+of+battle Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, most of the people rating it "too powerful" seem to be comparing it to other martial classes.
I guess it's me coming from 4e, but hearing a statement like "this character can gain 2d6 damage on every other attack, and the only thing he has to do to get it back is not attack for a round." (quoted pretty directly from one of the reviews) sounds kind of dumb. My standard response to stuff like this is "the wizard class exists in this game, your argument is invalid."
I like what one person says "characters in this book are powerful, but compared to the damage a sorcerer can put out or what a maxed out fighter build can pull off they feel about right."
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Post by: pretre
dementedwombat wrote: "this character can gain 2d6 damage on every other attack, and the only thing he has to do to get it back is not attack for a round."
I lol'd. I think they call those Rogues normally.
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Post by: streamdragon
warboss wrote:It's not arbitrary if a large segment of the playerbase doesn't like the mechanics it uses or the power level it introduces.
See I have always found this a strange argument. What "power level" does it actually introduce? Certainly nothing on par with the classes that already exist in the game.
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Post by: pretre
Yeah Cleric or Druid is still more powerful than anything Bo9S put out.
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Post by: Manchu
Or any psionic character.
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Post by: pretre
Or any character with enough splat books.
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Post by: Manchu
No, I meant the cleric and druid are more powerful than any psionic character.
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Post by: Farseer Faenyin
pretre wrote: Manchu wrote:Your post boils down to "nuh uh." In point of fact, most of the 3E splat is devoted to, by feat or prestige class, conferring what would be known as powers in 4E. As I mentioned, Bo9S was simply the most explicit example -- it was it's own logical next step from the Complete ____ line of books and 4E logically followed from it.
Thanks, Manchu! I was going to respond since he's mostly beating up on me, but I figured I'd wait a couple for you to cover it more succinctly.
I don't see how my reasoning is 'Nuh uh'. I've stated sound examples as to how my opinion could certainly be justified. We will just have to agree to disagree. I'm not beating up on anybody, I seem to remember getting beat up when I didn't agree with the power poster and his views.
Stating that a set of books that were intentionally meant to be feelers for 4th Edition show the logical step from 3rd to 4th is a rather limited scope for debate for the whole '3rd to 4th' was a logical step.
Again...agree to disagree. I feel it isn't logical at all, and you feel it is completely logical. I don't think we're going to meet in the middle on this one. Perhaps if you didn't mention how your opinion is that it is a logical step as often, I wouldn't have felt the need to interject that for some....it certainly wasn't. Almost as bad as people slamming their religion down others throats. Perhaps word it better to say 'I think it is logical' instead of insisting you are right. Automatically Appended Next Post: pretre wrote: warboss wrote:You're being ridiculous. What do you want? An official statement from WOTC that some people didn't like it? You're not going to get one.
Nope, I simply want you to back up your statement or change it. You said:
"It's not arbitrary if a large segment of the playerbase doesn't like the mechanics it uses or the power level it introduces. "
Which means that you have some knowledge of what a large segment of the player base thinks. I asked for a citation. If instead, you had said:
"It's not arbitrary because I don't like the mechanics it uses or the power level it introduces." I wouldn't have said anything, since that is your opinion.
Why don't you on the other hand prove that a large segment of the population didn't have an issue with it?
Because I am not making declarative statements speaking for a large segment of the population. I'm speaking for myself and my experience.
You're not going to find anything more definitive than I would which is anecdotal evidence from at best local gaming groups. In the end, it's obvious that I'm not going to convince you in either case and frankly I don't care.
Aha, so best not to make declarative statements that cannot be supported by fact then.
A poll would be a good way to do it, but proably not on Dakka as its D&D scope is very limited. I will chime in and say it wasn't played in my 5 local gaming stores at all because the mechanics were not liked. This is Central, PA...so add that area to the list of 'We like Pathfinder, and 4th Ed and its mechanics aren't wanted'. There are currently, on the board, 9 total D&D games and only one of which is 4th Edition. That is also a 'young gamer' group with no players who have enjoyed D&d for more than 5 years.
I will also say in general that the overall reception of 4th Edition was not strong among even gamers I kept tabs with from older groups...for what its worth. Granted that the negative posters tend to overwhelm such sites, but the forums I'd frequented were not very positive of the changes in 4th.
Obviously, different style gamers can and will think different...but in my experience the reception was not good at all.
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Post by: Manchu
Where? Farseer Faenyin wrote:Stating that a set of books that were intentionally meant to be feelers for 4th Edition show the logical step from 3rd to 4th is a rather limited scope for debate for the whole '3rd to 4th' was a logical step.
The Complete _____ books weren't "feelers" for 4E. ( TBH, that you think so makes me doubt that you know what they are.) Once again, my point is that feats and [prestige] class abilities (extraordinary, spell-like, supernatural, etc) available via splat paved the way for 4E powers. Bo9S was simply the culmination of these ideas in light of the realization that caster power creep had invalidated non-casting classes. Farseer Faenyin wrote: Perhaps if you didn't mention how your opinion is that it is a logical step as often, I wouldn't have felt the need to interject that for some....it certainly wasn't.
This subject isn't a matter of personal sentiment. You can feel that 4E does not logically follow from 3E all that you like but you have not posted a credible counterargument much less evidence supporting it.
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Post by: pretre
Manchu wrote:No, I meant the cleric and druid are more powerful than any psionic character.
Well, to be fair CoDzilla is more powerful than pretty much anything else in 3.5 but I concede my misunderstanding of your last statement.
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Post by: Manchu
I was agreeing with whoever (you?) said earlier that Psionics and Bo9S are very frequently arbitrarily banned (except by Warboss, who apparently banned them with full knowledge that they were not OP but rather because he disliked the play style).
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Post by: pretre
Manchu wrote:I was agreeing with whoever (you?) said earlier that Psionics and Bo9S are very frequently arbitrarily banned (except by Warboss, who apparently banned them with full knowledge that they were not OP but rather because he disliked the play style).
Stop being agreeable!
I can say that, from my experience, whenever I limit the books in a campaign it is more from a simplicity or a laziness standpoint as a DM than a power level problem. Although, originally I did it to limit the setting but then realized that that didn't really matter much since any class/combo/source can be reskinned to fit anywhere so I quit doing that.
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Post by: Manchu
And again, I agree! This is kind of what I was referring to about Bo9S. It has the very cool side-campaign content that can be nicely fit into just about anything.
OTOH, I did think a lot of 3.5 prestige classes would really only be useful in a more narrow campaign. I'm not just talking about the "environmental" books (Sandstorm, et al.) but prestige classes like daemon hunters and so forth. What's the point of being really, really good at dealing with enemy type X unless you are pretty damn certain X will make up most if not all of the opposition?
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Post by: pretre
Yeah, I guess that's the problem when you need to come up with SOOO many prestige classes, many of them will be too specific to be useful.
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Post by: dementedwombat
Darn it Manchu, why do you have to be such a nice reasonable person? You're a moderator...you're supposed to be tyrannical and capricious
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Post by: pretre
Kick him in the junk a couple times and/or try to get past the swear filter. He'll rise to the occasion.
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Post by: Forar
I dunno, he was holding my feet to the coals recently, but best I can tell from the last 3 pages he and I have essentially the exact same views on 2E, 3E and 4E aside from when a few mechanics started/evolved.
But mods are capricious and quick to anger. Post not ye flame wars, for your bans are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
/sagenod
:-D
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Post by: Galen
From all accounts I have heard the Book of Exalted Deeds did infinitely more to increase the power level of 3.5 than anything in Bo9S, but it didn't see as much banning because it was formatted and presented in the traditional manner and didn't require the DM to learn what amounted to a completely new playstyle in Bo9S.
It is fair to say that there was a section of the player base that didn't like the style, feel, or perceived power level of the new material in Bo9S, and there was also a group of players that felt it provided a breath of fresh air to the game. I don't think anyone should stretch to say that either of these groups is especially large or a majority. My guess would be that the situation is similar to many in this world. There are vocal minorities on either extreme, but the vast majority of players don't have a strong opinion one way or the other.
AS for edition evolution you can put me in the camp of "4E is not the logical progression of 3.5." The 3.5 feat system may have similarities to 4E at-wills, but 4E actually walked much of this back, not allowing you to combine effects as easily because every effect is keyed from a separate power. For example. you can't "cleave" and "twin strike" together in 4E, but I believe the feats cleave and 2-WP fighting could be used together in 3.5. I AM rusty on 3.5 rules so I could be wrong. The prestige class abilities of 3.5 and '1 used per day per level' abilities are as similar to 2nd ed rules as anything in 4E. There are plenty of things in 4E that didn't seem to be evolutions. Non-AC defenses, and 10+ saving throws don't seem to sprout from anything specific is 3.5. The whole "powers" structure of 4E didn't seem like a natural progression to me. Did I mention that skills were dumbed down in 4E? The later Essentials classes seem to be closer to the 3.5 -> 4E shift people have insinuated, but the fact that they came out years into 4E is a sign to me that 4E was an extreme departure from previous editions and WOTC was trying to walk that back a bit. I tell people 4E is a great game, and 3.5 is a great game, but 3.5 and 4E are not anywhere near the same game. Each previous edition 1st, 2nd, 3/3.5 seemed to me like a natural replacement of the previous rules set. 4E in no way obsoleted anything that made 3.5 great.
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Post by: Mannahnin
Non-AC Defenses are just the Fort, Will, and Reflex saves of 3rd/3.5 ed, except you switch it from a "I roll to defend" to an "attacker rolls to hit, just like he does against AC" mechanic. The main difference between them, mechanically, is in who rolls.
Similarly, the skill system in 4th is pretty close to how the skill system in 3rd tended to work if you optimized your character. It was usually a bad idea to spreas your skill points around a lot; you got better results concentrating on your best skills. 4th mostly just prevents you from shooting yourself in the foot that way. There are some other things you could do with the 3rd ed skills (all the little fiddly synergy bonuses from having x ranks in one skill helping another skill, or how you needed at least 1 rank in Jump to land on your feet after a Jump), but most of those didn't really add much to the game. IMO.
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Post by: adamsouza
Galen wrote:From all accounts I have heard the Book of Exalted Deeds did infinitely more to increase the power level of 3.5 than anything in Bo9S, but it didn't see as much banning because it was formatted and presented in the traditional manner and didn't require the DM to learn what amounted to a completely new playstyle in Bo9S.
The VOW of poverty was pretty much the only useful thing from BOED, made you awesome at low levels, on par with magic gear at mid levels, and handicapped you at high level play, where the magic items available dwarfed the VOP abilities. Completely fun/awesome for maybe the first 10 levels.
Like you said though, the formatting just felt like adding monk abilites and bonus feats.
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Post by: pretre
Galen wrote:From all accounts I have heard the Book of Exalted Deeds did infinitely more to increase the power level of 3.5 than anything in Bo9S, but it didn't see as much banning because it was formatted and presented in the traditional manner and didn't require the DM to learn what amounted to a completely new playstyle in Bo9S.
BoED was 3.0. And there was a fair amount of not allowing it going on.
The 3.5 feat system may have similarities to 4E at-wills,
Apples to oranges. Compare 3.5 Feats to 4E feats and 3.5 Powers/abiltiies to 4E At Wills, Encounters, Dailies.
Did I mention that skills were dumbed down in 4E?
There's a difference between dumbed down and simplified. Did we really need a knowledge skill for every single thing in the world? Three skills for stealthiness? Etc. Skills have waxed and waned over the history of D&D. 4th wasn't the first time.
The later Essentials classes seem to be closer to the 3.5 -> 4E shift people have insinuated, but the fact that they came out years into 4E is a sign to me that 4E was an extreme departure from previous editions and WOTC was trying to walk that back a bit.
Really? Essentials was even more simplified, imo. If you look into it, Essentials was just basically taking 4E and making it easier for starting players and combining all the existing materials into new books.
I tell people 4E is a great game, and 3.5 is a great game, but 3.5 and 4E are not anywhere near the same game.
Are you also saying that 2E and 3E are not the same game? Because they had just as many differences (and just as much caterwauling at the time) and still managed to be the same game, just different editions.
Each previous edition 1st, 2nd, 3/3.5 seemed to me like a natural replacement of the previous rules set.
Really? Because there were some pretty big uproars when 3E came out.
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Post by: Manchu
I made a very broken character without even trying to min/max or powergame using BoED. The Saint template is a beast. Automatically Appended Next Post: pretre wrote:There's a difference between dumbed down and simplified.
This is a really good point. I could rephrase it as, "there is a difference between complex and fun/useful."
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Post by: pretre
Manchu wrote:I made a very broken character without even trying to min/max or powergame using BoED. The Saint template is a beast.
Yeah, in our 'high level' game which ran a couple years, we had a monk who ended up with VOP and Saint. He was omg ouchy broken.
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Post by: Dr. What
Is anybody participating in the Murder in Baldur's Gate adventure?
I really wanted to do it, but I was turned off by the materials cost ($35 for an adventure and a screen is fantastic, but I just don't have the money) and I lacked a party that would regularly come.
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Post by: AlexHolker
Galen wrote:From all accounts I have heard the Book of Exalted Deeds did infinitely more to increase the power level of 3.5 than anything in Bo9S, but it didn't see as much banning because it was formatted and presented in the traditional manner and didn't require the DM to learn what amounted to a completely new playstyle in Bo9S.
The Book of Exalted Deeds introduced the most broken PrC in the game: the Apostle of Peace. And I don't mean "broken" as in "overpowered", I mean "broken" as in "this is a toxic character who will make everything around him". It's like a Frenzied Berserker with good PR.
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