Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am thinking of starting DnD and have decided on getting the 4th edition starter set. I've been trying to read up on DnD but I can't find anywhere where you can get models. Is there a good site for this besides Ebay and is there anything else anybody would recommend me getting to help start me off?

Thanks

I doubt this will help you, but in my town, they sell them at Target and Borders, if you have places like that, chances are you can find them there. Also, I suggest you don't go with 4e, 3.5 is much more challenging and enjoyable in my opinion, in 4e they really screw with the lore.

I disagree, 3.x is a highly finicky system with a lot of focus on min/maxing and silly builds. (Hmm I'll have fighter 1, mage 2, hexblade 4 obscure cheese prestige class 6 and obscure cheese prestige class 4)

Fighter iriteratve attacks don't work properly, the game is less balanced (druids?) and magic gets too strong near the end levels as well as everything becoming 'save or die'.

4th edition is available, easier to play and leave more time to have fun. It has more balance and there's less fanboi-ness about certain aspects of some campaign settings (FR mystra, drizzt etc... thank GOD!)

You can use tokens or warhammer minis or anything really. I'd actually suggest getting the starter box as it has some tiles and tokens. Get a couple of sets of dice (min 1 per player.. maybe an extra coupe of D20's for the DM) However if you pick it up seriously get yourself a wipe clean battlemat with a grid... it's great as you aren't limited by what's on the tiles and it's cheaper.

PM me if you have any Q's you want more detail on.

When I used to play we used Hero Clix models mostly (as they were selling them off really cheap at the time).

However, you can get D&D specific models online here (never used them so don't know how good/cheap/etc they are.

Personally I would be tempted to use models from other ranges, such as Mantic Undead for your undead, these chaps for your general monsters etc...

Entirely up to you.

Very useful thanks, especially the model links! However I have found the core rule set online for only fifteen punds more than the starter set and was wondering if I should just go for that instead...

The starter kit limits you to 3rd level AFAIK however the essentials are updated...

Core books are good. The MM and DMG are essential and the DMG has a starter adventure at the back.

PHB 1 is good and I'd recommend the PHB 2 (gnomes, druids barbarians half orcs..) as well.

It will probably cost about £60-£75 for all of those and a bit of reading!

So I guess that means that my next purchase after I understand the basic rules should be the Core Set. Any tips on what to get after that?

Whatever you need... the DDI stuff is good but not essential. It helps if the players know the rules too but I'd start with

DICE! LOTS OF THEM!
Dry erase grid battle mat
PHB1
PHB2 - helpful but not essential
DMG1
MM 1, 2 or 3. (prefernce for 1 or 3 but 1 has more 'classic' monsters so I'd go with that)
I don't find 2 as useful as 3. You only need one MM however having extras can be good.

If you're running a lot of undead based baddies the 'Open Grave' book is really good.

I'd avoid the manual of the plains books and the PHB3 is not that necessary unless you're running ebberon or dark sun (due to psionics)

Also the MM1 monsters don't deal enough damage at higher levels. But you'll figure that out. Importat thing is knowing when to ignore the rules!

A campaign setting could be good - forgotton relams or dark sun are good, totally different. Ebberon I dont have but its essentially fantasy-punk. However it largely depends on your players. You can use the default 'Nentil Vale' setting which is fine to be honest.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS any questions PM me

The nice thing about D&D is you aren't forced to use official miniatures. And there are tons and tons of options for fantasy figures. I prefer Reaper Mini (both their Dark Heaven and Warlords series are terrific and varied).

Have fun, RPGs can be a real treat, regardless of the system.

Or you can go all cheap and stuff and hit up Steve Jackson for a ton of figure stand-ins.
AKA Cardboard Heroes.
http://www.sjgames.com/heroes/
buy the PDF and run off a small army. Plus they have other neat items like castles.

For my games I use Reaper for the PC's minis and any particularly bad ass enemy.

For everything else, do this! A 100 minis for about $15 (which is what? 8-9 quid?) can't be beat.

Here's my personal improvement on the design: Don't number them on the sheet.
Buy a roll of packing tape. Before you punch them out give each row a layer of tape. Once they have been ghetto laminated go ahead and punch 'em out.

Now take a dry/wet erase pen and just right the number on the laminated token. Boom. You don't have to worry about hunting for 1A-1G any more.

As far as books go, skip Monster Manuals 1 and 2. They redid the math in MM3 to make fights faster and more intense.

Also: one of these bad boys makes it much easier to keep track of combat.

In my games i use whatever models i can find that fit. I have 1 character who uses a Vindicare assassin for his model (we're playing dragonstar, which is Science fantasy), another is using a ral partha model, etc.
as for systems... Pathfinder. I read 4th ed D&D and _hated_ it with the passion of a thousand suns. Pathfinder is more like 3.75, and they've fixed a lot of the bugs.

Just remember though.. Pathfinder is essentually a compltetely different system, Based on D&D3.5. It is not compatable with 3.5.

When I run my 3.5 game, I drop 3 books on the table before characters are rolled. PH, DMG, MM. If you cannot play a base class/race then you have no reason to expect me to allow something from outside those books.
As for scaling.... I have seen 100 koblods take out a level 6 party.

CoI wrote:I read 4th ed D&D and _hated_ it with the passion of a thousand suns.

Out of curiosity, did you actually play it at all? Or just read it and decided it wasn't for you? (not trying to start anything, just honestly curious.)

Troll and Toad is a good place to get minis from. They have some good grab bags and deals. Admittedly not sure what their international shipping policy is. I know they do ship to the UK.

It also warms my heart to know that we are batting darn near 100% for DnD threads having editions wars pop up. That sort of lack of self control just makes me feel all warm inside. That a fella can ask for information on one game and get a bunch of people giving advice on something he di'nt even want. Don't like 4th? Fantastic, not everyone likes everything, but this thread is about finding mini's. Think Pathfinder is a great game? Also fantastic, make a thread about it, don't hijack someone elses thread.

If I were you I wouldn't actually get the red box, and I do have my reasons before anybody contradicts me. For starters it goes to level 2, it's good content and ideas. THe tokens and dice are of good quality, but there is problems.
The main one being that the classes are incorrect, a friend of mine built a fighter using the box, and nothing about marking was in there at all. He also had stances at level 1, all the powers in the box are actually incorrect to the full core game, which is very, very bad.
I'm new to the game myself, probably about 4-5 sessions in now, and we've been going fine with just the 3 main books. I'm the DM, so I keep the groups DMG and MM. The players share the one PHB we have, a couple of them have cards for their powers, one just knows his, and the last 2 either share the book or sometimes one of them brings his mini laptop. The 3 core books are the first thing yous hould buy, along with a dry erase mat or some basic dungeon tiles. I myself only use dungeon tiles and a fake version of Dwarven Forge that I found on ebay.
So yeh, just thought I'd warn you that the red box isn't great, like I say, If you have the money pick up a copy of each of the main books, maybe order a few minis from reaper miniatures, they have a diverse range, and most of all good luck!

From what I've head, regular 4.0 "Fighter" is now the Essentials "Weaponmaster" or some such. It's an intentional change, as people thought the 4.0 Fighter was too complicated and didn't like having powers. The Weaponmaster is or will be in a class compilation, that will presumably also include the additional options from the Martial Powers books.

I personally think this is someone at WotC listening to the crack-addled minority, but that's the apparent policy.

Other classes are similarly "similar but different" with a slightly different (but interoperable) power set.

For this reason I recommend the 'regular' books as well, but there's been rumors that the Essentials-series may be the one way forward and books, even the PHB, may not be reprinted. Not the Red Box per se, but the new-style books.

I do recommend using either cards or some sort of power listing. 4.0-style powers have some very subtle things that can be overlooked, and the sheer quantity of them means that 'analysis paralysis' can slow the game down.

By subtlety I mean that, at times, even little things like indenting and shading in powers can have a mechanical effect. Knowing what clause is reliant on what can make a power useful or useless. For example, some powers are attacks that have additional effect on damage, while some do additional effects on use, even if the attack misses. The latter is much more useful! Also the keywords can be critical and can similarly make some powers more useful. For example, not knowing the 'Reliable' keyword makes a lot of Fighter (sorry, Weaponmaster) Encounter/Daily powers seem underpowered compared to other classes, but then you realize that the Fighter's Reliable powers are not expended on a miss! Similarly some powers may invoke entire subsystems: My group doesn't use Summons much if any at the moment, but if my Druid gets a Summons in a level or two, I plan on requesting a moment to run down the Summons rules so everyone is familiar with them. The GM probably has only skimmed them, after all, and no one else really uses them, and there's a lot of small differences between a summons, a conjuration, etc.

The quantity issue is a bit more obvious. If a player spends ten minutes each round deciding what power to use, it slows the game down a lot. I like the default color coding for this, as Green (at-will) powers are always good fall-backs if nothing else seems right.

If you were in the states I would tell you to go to miniaturemarket.com where you can buy the individual monsters from their pre-painted plastic random boxes.

If you respect miniatures they are not the greatest, (and what wargamer likes prepainted?) but the models actually look like D&D monsters out of the books which is nice. Hopefully someone can tell you a UK site that does similar.

I use reaper for characters though, them models are sweet.

Red Box is Essentials, so the classes are different. Most of it is based around modifying basic attacks thus why different At-Will stances that add to the to hit or damage instead of being something specific.

If your friends have never played and you have never played the Red Box isn't a bad way to start. You get it and play it to learn the rules and than pass it around to your friends than you play the group game. It is a good way for a group that doesn't know the rules to get up to speed. If you have people with experience with it just skip it and go for big boy books.

Actually i found that pathfinder is very compatible with 3.5. some stuff needs a little reworking (ie. how cleave works in relation to other feats) but otherwise it seems ok.
and i read it. didn't believe what i'd read, and re-read it after i'd had some time to think about it. still hated it. they've turned D&D into a CCG and removed a lot of what i loved. CN was a highly abused, but still needed alignment.
and where's the war? he asked, we replied and added our thoughts on some other things he mentioned. No hijack.
But the OT. WHFB is also a good place for D&D minis. i bought a mob of Ork boys (or whatever they're called) years ago and i still use them for just about everything. I proxy a lot though. Find models that are close, have their bases and reach similar and go for your life. I use a SM dread for Huge creatures that are tall rather than long, and that seems to work. Also there's a lot of free DL out there for tokens or Paper models that are the right size. DrivethroughRPG.com is good for that.

Ignore the banter. Whatever version you play, you'll enjoy.

CoI wrote: No hijack.

Just saying that doesn't cancel out the fact you did. OP wanted help with 4th, not a broken and out of date system yet you still sauntered in and went down that path. In all fairness you weren't the only one and you weren't the first. It was hijacked from the first response. Could you imagine every time you started a thread about a game half the posters came in to tell you about a different one? Would get annoying, wouldn't?

Also, considering one of the advertised qualities of Pathfinder was that they reworked 3.5 to fix it, doesn't it defeat the purpose to reintegrate 3.5 back in to Pathfinder?

Well thanks all, great info from everybody, barring the feuds about different game systems! I'll get some Reaper minis and then I imagine I'll get the core books.

Finally, do any UK residents know where an under 18 may join a group as after much searching the nearest one I can find is several hundred miles away For reference I live in South West London.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Ignore the banter. Whatever version you play, you'll enjoy.

This. Any of the systems are good. 3.5/Pathfinder is a bit more of an "Epic Hero" system, while 4th is more teamwork/WOW pen+paper.

Ahtman wrote:

CoI wrote: No hijack.

Just saying that doesn't cancel out the fact you did. OP wanted help with 4th, not a broken and out of date system yet you still sauntered in and went down that path. In all fairness you weren't the only one and you weren't the first. It was hijacked from the first response. Could you imagine every time you started a thread about a game half the posters came in to tell you about a different one? Would get annoying, wouldn't?

Also, considering one of the advertised qualities of Pathfinder was that they reworked 3.5 to fix it, doesn't it defeat the purpose to reintegrate 3.5 back in to Pathfinder?

Darksphere, under Waterloo run a session of Essentials from 7-9pm every Wednesday.

3.5 and 4E i have found fun, well when I was with players that did not whine about what they rolled after four to five levels of playing it, even when I am sticking to core books.

reapermini.com as well as trollandtoad.com offer a decent selection of minis.

When it comes to starting, dont worry about not having all the tools for every situation, take it slow and fing a good group of people to play with, and you should enjoy the game.

I, too, found it somewhat odd that the OP asks for help with 4e, and within 30 minutes, someone comes in to tell him that he has chosen BADWRONGFUN. But, hey, they're Pathfinder Jihadists. What do you expect.

I took a look on the Wizards of the Coast site, and I also found Fifty's "Dark Sphere" store. I also found a game shop on, "100 Oxford Street" and Gamer's Guild (http://www.thegamersguild.co.uk/) in "Redhill".

If you can stomach painting, yeah, go with Reaper. They have bad-ass minis. I, personally, use tokens to represent my soon-to-be-dead things. One of the guys on the WotC boards has a token-maker in his sig; I can get you the URL if you really want to use it.