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hm...

Iron Kingdoms does not currently support 4th ed, and Privateer Press hasn't made a decision about whether or not they'll be updating it (or releasing a new Core IK book in 3.5).

So my question is this: Should they update? Is this so much better than the 3.5 rules that they can't just tweak 3.5 and get what they want?

odinsgrandson wrote:hm...

Iron Kingdoms does not currently support 4th ed, and Privateer Press hasn't made a decision about whether or not they'll be updating it (or releasing a new Core IK book in 3.5).

So my question is this: Should they update? Is this so much better than the 3.5 rules that they can't just tweak 3.5 and get what they want?

DnD 3.5 was very bogged down and a lot of the main combat mechanics are very unwieldy and difficult to use. Last time I ever grapple anyone was simply to explain why the grappling system sucks.

The 1/day on most classes abilities limited Wizards to sucking hard in early levels but being unkillable gods around level 13. There really wasn't an encounter you could design for a high level wizard without a ton of anti-magic fields.

The Druid was also hella broken. All the fire power of the wizard, the healing of the cleric, more utility than the bard, and an animal companion to make up for the lack of fighting power. The only thing the druid can't do is pick locks.

We ran this last night.

I found it enjoyable as a DM, moreso than 3rd by a long shot...and the players didn't seem to have 'I suck' written all over their faces when playing a level 1 wizard, paladin, and cleric. Which speaks volumes in my honest opinion.

As a GM I'm a big fan of simplified, streamlined monsters and minions too. Means we can get through the action sequences in plenty of time, with plenty of fun, and have lots of time left for banter, investigation and storytelling.
I think the 4th edition way is a great conceptual leap- the game the DM is playing is totally different to the PCs, so the DM doesn't need as much detail in his rules.

Bootlegged copies of the PHB, MM and DMG are out there if you care to look. If anyone wants a linky shoot me a PM and I'll give it to you.

http://dnd4.com/release#4

Next week already?

Wow.

Da Boss wrote:As a GM I'm a big fan of simplified, streamlined monsters and minions too. Means we can get through the action sequences in plenty of time, with plenty of fun, and have lots of time left for banter, investigation and storytelling.
I think the 4th edition way is a great conceptual leap- the game the DM is playing is totally different to the PCs, so the DM doesn't need as much detail in his rules.

You'd think so.

The combats (using minis) take quite a bit of time. It isn't BORING like 3e was though, so it works out allright.

Really?
Was it the player turns that took ages? (I could see that positioning and stuff is much more important now alright, which could string things out a bit.)

From just looking at the rules it looked like it would be much faster.
How many combat rounds did each combat take? Something that always bugged me about 3.5 was that most combats are over in 3-4 rounds. I wouldn't mind combat going on if it's epic and takes multiple, fun, rounds.
I don't normally use minis, looks like I might have to start though- a lot of the abilities are very specifically position dependant...

Well the whole combat takes longer now, both the DM and the players turns.

It's totally a miniatures game now. You can play without it but I think you'll miss alot of the game if you do.

With 5-8 monsters and 3 players it took between 9-12 rounds of combat to resolve.

The rounds were indeed fun.

Each individual round was faster than 3rd but with an overall far greater number of rounds I suspect it all balances out with the 'fun factor' being much higher.

It's more like a LOTR game than anything, really. I don't see that as a problem though. LOTR is like 40k 1st edition, lots of individual heroism. A bit micromanagement, but that's what makes the system works--you have to think ahead. It doesn't work for 50 guys per side, but in DND I doubt you'll ever go above 20 guys without intentionally doing so as some sort of 'epic battle' like a 'last stand against the horde'.

Hmmm. Makes me glad I'm a wargamer aswell as an RPGer. Reckon I can float a fair amount of stuff from my WFB, Hordes and LOTR models, and at least my brief dalliance with D'n'D minis will be worth it somewhat now. But I'm the only GM I know with that much of a library of minis.
9-12 fast rounds sound much better to me than the 3-4 I'm used to. I'm looking forward to getting the books now.
Cheers!

I actually play D&D more regularly than I play any given wargame. I’ve been in an all-grownups (at 32 I’m the youngest) group playing every other Sunday for something like six or seven years now, and play pretty close to every Thursday night with some younger (mix of my age and college age) folks for about the past 4-5 years. I played a fair amount of 2nd ed when I was younger, too.

3rd edition always encouraged miniatures and the 3.5 revision emphasized it even more. 4th hammers the point home further, but really, the combat system has been based around using minis since 2000. This is no biggie for my Sunday group, as I know most of them from wargaming originally, and we’ve embraced it over the years. Between us we own multiple Chessex 4x8 Mondomats, several smaller, thousands of prepainted plastic D&D minis, and a few hundred dollars worth of Dwarven Forge prepainted dungeon sets too. The Thursday night group doesn’t have such extensive resources, but still always works with battlemats and a (smaller) collection of prepainted D&D minis for combat.

I’ve run a bit and played a lot, and recently I’ve started running the Keep on the Shadowfulls into 4th ed module. Everyone I’ve tried it with enjoys it a lot. 4th ed definitely makes the characters more competent and interesting right from the start, and the design and scaling of the monsters and encounters encourages even more visually dramatic battles, with lots of antagonists. Despite this, I find that combat runs a touch faster than 3.5 combat does, even with us all learning the rules. I also find that the combats take more rounds so far, which isn’t a bad thing. More rounds of moving and making decisions = more tactical interest and more chances to do dramatic things. I suspect things will slow a bit as characters advance and have more powers and options to play with, but that will hopefully be counterbalanced by their general higher level of comfort with the system and speed in handling their more common “at will” powers and maneuvers.

I'm similar to you Mannahnin, I run a game with my housemates and friends on mondays in Iron Kingdom (Great setting, terrible rules) and with my long time group from College on Fridays. I only play wargames maybe once or twice a month by comparison.
I'm the GM more often than not, because I enjoy it and my players enjoy my games. From that point of veiw, 4th edition looks awesome. The best bit is how easy large cinematic combat will be to run.

I'm pretty psyched about 4th. I keep hearing all these good things. And now that I have the resources I'm going to be painting my own character's model this time around. Some of the Warmachine models will look excellent for DnD characters.

I use Draegyn the Black Bastard for one of my PCs.



GW, PP, and Reaper make some excellent figs for characters. We use a lot of pre-painted plastic in my groups, but for long-term PCs, nothing beats finding and painting a nice high-quality sculpt.

Picking up my PHB tomorrow. Haven't looked at anything online, want to be suprised when I spend the day reading it.

Le Grognard wrote:Picking up my PHB tomorrow. Haven't looked at anything online, want to be suprised when I spend the day reading it.

Me too, I haven't been reading much about it after the first wave of stuff. I'm getting psyched! In a strange twist of events though, my girlfriend wants to buy me the PHB?

Well was a dork and was there when the FLGS opened and had my PHB in my hot little paws by 1205 CST.

Paged through it, but haven't sat down to give it a full reading. Not too sure about the Goat People (Tieflings) or the Lizard People(Dragonborn). If I DM a campaign, they're out on they're collective backsides.

Then Forgotten Realms is going to be the setting for the next round of Living D&D? I want to see how they're going to incorporate the Goats and Lizards into the fluff, or are they just going to magically appear? Although, this is D&D (sort of now) that we're talking about.

But that's just a rant off the top of me head without giving the book a full read through. I'm sure there'll be more to rant about and some positives too. Stay tuned.

Le Grognard wrote:Well was a dork and was there when the FLGS opened and had my PHB in my hot little paws by 1205 CST.

Paged through it, but haven't sat down to give it a full reading. Not too sure about the Goat People (Tiefelings) or the Lizard People(Dragonborn). If I DM a campaign, they're out on they're collective backsides.

Then Forgotten Realms is going to be the setting for the next round of Living D&D? I want to see how they're going to incorporate the Goats and Lizards into the fluff, or are they just going to magically appear? Although, this is D&D (sort of now) that we're talking about.

But that's just a rant off the top of me head without giving the book a full read through. I'm sure there'll be more to rant about and some positives too. Stay tuned.

Can't imagine why you'd toss them out sight unseen.

Oh well.

It is taking some getting used to. I just got the PHB yesterday. My initial reaction was that it sucked. I am still getting used to the idea that everyone has the same attack bonus. ALso, it seems they made attacking the same for everyone with all the "spells" that everyone can do now. However they are called martial abilities. I just will have to get used to the fighters not getting around 6 attacks per turn. ALso the HPs are relatively close for everyone increasing between 4-6? I think every level.THe more I read it the more I think its ok. It will just take some getting used to. SO far I really like the rouge and the Wizard. I will probably be playing one of those two. SOmhow it seems like the rouges wil be doing more damage than the fighters. =/

Le Grognard wrote:

Then Forgotten Realms is going to be the setting for the next round of Living D&D? I want to see how they're going to incorporate the Goats and Lizards into the fluff, or are they just going to magically appear? Although, this is D&D (sort of now) that we're talking about.

Forgotten Realms has had teiflings incorperated for some time now. One of the novels even features a teifling as the main character. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that Dragonborn are Saurials which have also been in the background of FR for quite some time, though had't gotten much time in the spotlight since the early days.

Meph

I just finished getting a full read through of the book. I love it. It fixes all the problems that 3.5 had. Especially imbalance between the classes/races/feats. Everything is balanced and it is pretty difficult to actually min/max the system for strong advantages over the other party members. But in this edition the game recognizes that your character is going to be with a group so there is a lot more incentive to not be a douche bag, which is great. I think I'm either going to do a human rogue or a half-elf (seeing as how they don't suck balls anymore) ranger. This new system is great, reminds me of Star Wars Saga Edition but a little more cleaned up and fleshed out.

I do have one criticism though. Multi classing is a bit odd. You have to take a feat to gain access to swapping your old out abilities at later levels when the swaps happen up to new abilities of your level. I just don't see a lot of people getting this when they first pick up the book. I'm afraid everyone will just assume the multiclass feats are only there to pick up the second and third tier abilities and paths of other classes. There is a general flaw to it mechanically too. Some of the classes rely on their class features for a majority of their effectiveness so a ranger that takes the multiclass rogue feat isn't going to have sneak attack. That is the only odd thing I'm finding about it and I hope they fix these problems with new feats in the next PHB, since they are doing them in installments to get all the classes in (thank god, no more 20 different splat books to keep up with all the classes, just 3 PHBs, maybe 4).

I am/was excited about all the online options like the virutal table top and character generator and such, but apparently they will not be ready for several months. Anybody heard anything else on the subject?

I was hoping for more examples of play than they included
in the PHB. That stuff is what helped get me started into
reading the old Advanced DnD book.

Whitescar wrote:I am/was excited about all the online options like the virutal table top and character generator and such, but apparently they will not be ready for several months. Anybody heard anything else on the subject?

Yeah, it's going to be a while before the DDI tools come out. There's a huge excrement storm on the boards over at the WotC site. The person in charge posted on Saturday about it and has been taking a beating for the last 3 days.

Mephistoles1 wrote:

Le Grognard wrote:

Then Forgotten Realms is going to be the setting for the next round of Living D&D? I want to see how they're going to incorporate the Goats and Lizards into the fluff, or are they just going to magically appear? Although, this is D&D (sort of now) that we're talking about.

Forgotten Realms has had teiflings incorperated for some time now. One of the novels even features a teifling as the main character. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that Dragonborn are Saurials which have also been in the background of FR for quite some time, though had't gotten much time in the spotlight since the early days.

Meph

Sadly, I haven't played or kept up on the 'fluff' for quite some time. Looking forward to getting back into it.

Yeah, it's going to be a while before the DDI tools come out. There's a huge excrement storm on the boards over at the WotC site.

Well, no kidding, there aught to be.

When I got my 4e books, I decided to see if there were any map making tools online. I was amazed to see that there aren't any, or at least none that a quick Google search turned up.

I've spent maybe 40 hours screwing around, and already have aboot 25% of a decent one done. It seriously would take a decent programmer no more than a month or two to make a very usable 2D map maker.

I'll finish mine up and see if I can con Wizards into paying me for it.

Some buddies and I have been playing 4th for a little while now and I have to say that I really like it! I'm playing a half-elf warlock using infernal pact. We just made it to 2nd level which opens up the utility powers (non combat abilities). They seem to add a lot to the game. I also played a Cleric on the gameday preview and found it to be very easy to just pick up and play.

Still waiting for my 3-pack from Amazon. Problem is our first session's on Saturday. Bummer...I may be playing blind on this one (but then again, how is that different from any other game, really?).

Interestingly, my old old OLD (i.e. Cape Cod) crowd is playing FIRST Edition (Red Box), rather than gear up for 4th...

syr8766 wrote:Still waiting for my 3-pack from Amazon. Problem is our first session's on Saturday. Bummer...I may be playing blind on this one (but then again, how is that different from any other game, really?).

Interestingly, my old old OLD (i.e. Cape Cod) crowd is playing FIRST Edition (Red Box), rather than gear up for 4th...

1st edition?!?!?! That's freakin' awesome!!!

I have been running a new 4th ed campaign with my group, using new characters and the Keep on the Shadowfell module.

This is a fantastic grid miniature game. It has tons of options and a dynamic system where no one is bored because they have nothing useful to do. The new paradigm of healing is one of the best innovations. As a DM, the tools they give you to run the monsters are brilliant. Each monster has full game stats and a tactics section that tells you how to run them. I have found it to be more fun than 3.5, even at level 1.

As a role playing game? Well, it's D&D. Its going to be exactly as RP intensive as any previous edition was--that is to say, it will depend totally on your group and DM.

Our group had been playing Fantasy Flight Game's dungeon crawler called Descent. This was fun for a while, but was overly simplistic and not that balanced depending on the party/skill make up. The DM/party dynamic is much more fun than the Overlord vs the party dynamic.