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Anpu42 wrote:Personally I love 4th edition: Why?
1. As a GM it makes my life so easy, I only have to spend the time I want to on building adventures.
2. The Company Support: This might not seem like a lot, but with using the “Character Builder” and “Adventure Tools” everything is up-to-date.

OMG! Support for 4th Ed is awesome. I am soooo in love with CB and AT. One of my players pays the $15/month and it is worth every penny. If he didn't, I would.

Character Builder makes keeping your character updated a snap! I love it.

Adventure Tools needs more modules, but the monster database is awesome for DMs who like to 'Wing It'.

I used E-Tools in previous editions of D&D and, although it was cool, it was pretty annoying at times to do what you wanted. D&D Insider is just awesome.

Oh and don't forget the search engine that has every rule they've printed for 4th Ed in it, by category.

pretre wrote:OMG! Support for 4th Ed is awesome. I am soooo in love with CB and AT. One of my players pays the $15/month and it is worth every penny. If he didn't, I would.

If he is consistent, he really should buy the annual subscription for $70. That makes it less than $6 a month.

Ahtman wrote:

pretre wrote:OMG! Support for 4th Ed is awesome. I am soooo in love with CB and AT. One of my players pays the $15/month and it is worth every penny. If he didn't, I would.

If he is consistent, he really should buy the annual subscription for $70. That makes it less than $6 a month.

Oooh! I didn't know about that one. Thank you!

My friend started a 4e game about a year ago after being a player in my own rpg's for years, inviting me and my family to play. My wife has played rpgs sporadically and this was the first game that my son had played. I've played DnD in all it's incarnations (cut my teeth on 1.0) and had my reservations with 4e after being rather disappointed with 3.0.

Character creation was fun and simple - a boon to my wife who hates the process - when using the Character Builder and the simplicity of the system lends itself to developing your character's story and roleplaying traits. The Class/Build/Powers are relatively limiting when going cross-class or multi-classing - they're really focused on making sure everyone in the party sticks to their assigned roles while being able to one-trick-pony occassionally.

The system works best with 5 players who each take a separate role: defender, leader, striker, and controller. We're in a 4-member party with two leaders (Cleric and Warlord), a striker(Avenger), and a controller (Wizard) and are sorely in need of a fighter or paladin. It definitely allows for great interactions between the various class abilities with 'nova' style combos - especially with a support class like the warlord.

I've enjoyed our games alot and while the system is definitely different, it's not different in a bad way. I'd say that it brings a lot more balance to the classes as a whole and introduces some interesting mechanics of game play.

D&D4E - Brilliant!
I've been playing D&D since Basic (in 1981), and I think 4E is possibly the best version if all you want is a combat heavy fantasy game. I am loving the figure representation aspect of the game too.
You can role-play (our group does) in between the fighting, and have fun at the same time.

I have played 4E (my Dark Pact Warlock is the best fun I have had in a group with 3 other men - EVER), and I have GM'd 4E (5 games into a homebrew campaign).
I can honestly say that for GM's this is a fanatasic system - each enemy is encapsulated into a single box, and each Monster in the Monster Manual has encounters ready made for you - fantastic! All a GM has to do is create the game for the night!

If you can, use the character builder to create the characters - it is SO easy. It sorts the 'Powers' out for you too (the only part of the game that can get in the way of play at times, whilst you're waiting for the players to read the description and details to sort out which one they are going to use), but this soon becomes second nature.

Have Fun and Enjoy Yourselves!

You can strip down any RPG to numbers, in 4E it might be a bit easier but it's really up to the gm and players if they want to essentially play a boardgame about killing monsters getting lootz or a game where they craft a story.

I had a ton of issues with 4E. I had tons of fun with the 3rd edition, but when I tried playing 4E it was an odd experience. At first my friends and I loved it since it really gave a new tactical way to play out combat: that made the game much more exciting. We also saw new ways to layout our characters almost like a new world of character development. As we kept playing we started to get a feeling like it was WOW on paper... then we started playing out the more fluffy RPG parts of our games which to be honest take up most of our games, and we saw how little the game rules gave us for things such as diplomacy. The skill set which had once been a HUGE list, is now just 8 or so.

Of course you can RPG yourself without using any rules, and I believe this is a big argument against the lack of skills being a negative thing. I understand this, but I like my RPG games to have rules and mechanics for fluffier things which lie outside of combat. If i wanted to have a combat focused game based off special attacks i could just play WoW... you know?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What we did to fix this issue was to use the old skill system with the 4E combat system.

Sageheart wrote:The skill set which had once been a HUGE list, is now just 8 or so.

There are 17 skills. I'm not sure what the problem was with diplomacy since one of the skills is called Diplomacy. In the end how does it make it that huge of a difference if, instead of putting points into pick-pocket, pick lock, disable trap, sleight-of-hand, ect, you put them under one heading: thievery.

I had no major qualms with 3rd edition. But I like 4th edition a lot. It's easier to get a longer campaign gaining momentum I feel compared to previously. Plenty of room for the character development but the option being there for a lot more easy to organise larger battles. I feel its a step in the right direction for the system.

Lexx wrote:I had no major qualms with 3rd edition. But I like 4th edition a lot. It's easier to get a longer campaign gaining momentum I feel compared to previously. Plenty of room for the character development but the option being there for a lot more easy to organise larger battles. I feel its a step in the right direction for the system.

True, it is posible to plan out a campain going from 1st to 30th before the first session is played.
You also have the posibility to aslo run the entire campain without a single fight.

Sageheart wrote:I had a ton of issues with 4E. I had tons of fun with the 3rd edition, but when I tried playing 4E it was an odd experience. At first my friends and I loved it since it really gave a new tactical way to play out combat: that made the game much more exciting. We also saw new ways to layout our characters almost like a new world of character development. As we kept playing we started to get a feeling like it was WOW on paper... then we started playing out the more fluffy RPG parts of our games which to be honest take up most of our games, and we saw how little the game rules gave us for things such as diplomacy. The skill set which had once been a HUGE list, is now just 8 or so.

This is the role-playing vs roll-playing debate. Also, D&D 4E isn't WOW on Paper. Wow is D&D on a computer.

# of Skills is kind of irrelevant, but as someone else mentioned. There are 17 now. There were more before and before that in 2nd and 1st edition there were even more. Rules do not role-playing make. Role-playing makes role-playing.

Of course you can RPG yourself without using any rules, and I believe this is a big argument against the lack of skills being a negative thing. I understand this, but I like my RPG games to have rules and mechanics for fluffier things which lie outside of combat. If i wanted to have a combat focused game based off special attacks i could just play WoW... you know?

Amusingly enough there is actually MORE structure in 4th ed for non-combat encounters (skill challenges) then there was in any previous edition. The difference is that there are not more rules. Do not confuse # of rules for support.

If # of rules = support for something than the 1st edition DM's guide was the most advanced 'role-playing' aid ever as it had rules for everything. When it came down to it though, they did not really provide a structure for Roleplaying, they provided an obstacle. Every time you wanted to do anything, you had to roll on a table. The same was true of 3rd ed. More rules does not equal more roleplaying.

D&D 4E provides you a structure to roleplay and have non combat encounters and then gets the hell out of your way. That's what a system should do.

Ahtman wrote:

Catyrpelius wrote:4th edition is more about combat nd less about role playing.

If you want something thats more into actual role playing then I suggest pathfinder, as it closely resmebels 3.5

That seems more a like a personal problem and less of a reality. A person can roleplay all day without any kind of rules at all, so the inclusion of rules won't determine your level of roleplaying, the player will. Any system can be turned into a numbers crunch with little roleplaying. Fourth Edition does make combat more accessible and streamlined, but that doesn't mean you can't roleplay. I mean, if you don't want to roleplay while you are playing 4th, more power to you, but that isn't an inherent flaw in the system.

I'll agree with that, and also, D&D was never a system which focused on social interactions; you always had to implement those aspects yourself. I enjoy 4E because it's very honest about what it is; it's essentially a skirmish game where the players control one individual person. It does that well too, and it's much more balanced than any previous incarnation of the game. If you want to include roleplaying aspects, then by all means, but it's not something which will be arbitrated by the ruleset. In short, after playing D&D for years I was proud of WotC for making D&D into a well balanced system.

That being said, I also realized that I'm not looking for a strict combat focused game system, I like that in my miniatures games, not my roleplaying ones. I want a game system which can sustain some deviation from the RAW and that doesn't promote the PC's into effective gods. I got that in some of my older D&D games, but only because I forced a square peg into a round hole, D&D was never not about becoming an all powerful combat god rules wise. So once WotC was honest with what D&D was, I had to be honest with myself and started running other things after 14-15 years. I like story, and background, and fluff, but I also like desperate fights with survival on a knife's edge, and D&D is not made to handle that well. So now I run Dark Heresy and WFRP 2E. I like those systems, they lend themselves well to the types of games that I want to play, they take on the fly arbitration well, and they give themselves over much easier to story based gaming as the character achievement tends to be less focused on loot and experience that makes the PC into a combat god. In D&D leveling invariably makes you a better killer, and you have to become a better killer too, otherwise you let the party and yourself down facing the next series of challenges, and since the major way you've always gained experience in D&D is by destroying foes... Well then I'm back to the start.

Long story short, 4E does D&D well and I feel it's the most balanced and fair version ever, but if your focus is story advancement, then D&D was never your best choice to begin with.

P.S.: Pathfinder is interesting, but failed to address most of the balance issues of 3.5, and in some instances made new ones. If you love 3.5 though, and don't want to stop buying books for it, then by all means. Also, as someone who has DMed every version of D&D, 4E D&D is by far the kindest in that regard, and after I stopped DMing 3.5 and realized the effort I put in for the return that I got, never again.

Yes the group is important, very important.

My group is made up with mostly players that started with 1st edition. Some of them are having problems with 4th edition. Perceptions are that they Nerfed everything.

However I think the problem is not the system, but the players themselves.
1] Started in 79
2] Started in 83
3] Started in 85
4] Stared in the early 80’s AFAIK
5] Started in 95
And a new one that started a few month ago.

The funny part is that #1 Complains that it is Roll-Play, not Role-Play, but every time I run a high [around 50/50] Non-Combat Game he complains about not a enough combat and will only use the Aid another Action during Skill Challenges and he hates the new Skill System

#2 Keeps wanting to cast his 20d6 fire balls and keeps complaing the it is only a Daily Power. He LOVES the new skill System

#3 Has Adapted well, but his dice still hate him.

#4 Joined the group about a year ago and has little or no complaints

#5 Love the System and the new guy just does not know any better.

However they keep coming and having a good time.

One of my Saying fits here perfectly
-The System is All Important
-The System is Unimportant.

You want to run a High Fantasy Game like The Pirates of Dark Water or Hawk the Slayer; you want to use Palladium or 3.5/Pathfinder.
You want a Middle Fantasy Game like LotR or Avatar the Last Air Bender, you can do it with 4th, but 3.5 or 2nd might work better.
You want to a Low Fantasy Game you might want to Look into WHF or even GURPS.

Once you get past the Core Books and into the other books [DMG 2], you could run them all with 4e. it all depends on what you want.

Also you need to look in the Fundamental Attitude change to the DM/Player relationship.
In 1st and 2nd it was I am God and you live and die by my Benevolence.
In 3rd it change to You are a team in the NFL and I am playing all of the Other Teams.
In 4th it is now You are my Team and I am the Head Coach.

As usual, Anpu, you provide excellent thoughts based on experience:

Anpu42 wrote:Also you need to look in the Fundamental Attitude change to the DM/Player relationship.
In 1st and 2nd it was I am God and you live and die by my Benevolence.
In 3rd it change to You are a team in the NFL and I am playing all of the Other Teams.
In 4th it is now You are my Team and I am the Head Coach.

I would say that 3rd could also be: "I'm the king but you nobles have made me sign Magna Carta, which I will grudgingly accpet." If the DM is bad, that is.

I would play Dark Heresy and wait for 5th tbh.

Unless you were really into some particular rule or world.

I played the game from AD&D (1E) through 3.5E, but 4E has made me go back to 1E...

Out of curiosity, anyone tried the new D&D Essentials?

Honestly, I think the biggest hurdle 4E has to oversome is the nostalgia it's playerbase has for previous editions.

4E mechanically is vastly superior to it's previous editions.

Roll Play Vs. Role Play arguments are riduclous, since that has nothing to do with mechanics and everything to do with the gaming group.

adamsouza wrote:Honestly, I think the biggest hurdle 4E has to oversome is the nostalgia it's playerbase has for previous editions.

4E mechanically is vastly superior to it's previous editions.

Roll Play Vs. Role Play arguments are riduclous, since that has nothing to do with mechanics and everything to do with the gaming group.

Short, simple, and to the point, well said sir.

Its pretty well WoW on table top. 3rd ed was the last time I actually enjoyed D&D.


By that I mean that the combat abilities and mechanics are ridiculously over the top. It eschews the fantasy feel of classic D&D with a YAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH I AM A GOD OF SLAUGHTER that seems to permeate gaming today.

I like the idea that 3/3.5 is somehow 'realistic' and not over the top at all.

Ahtman wrote:I like the idea that 3/3.5 is somehow 'realistic' and not over the top at all.

He and every other PC in his party had a strict no casters policy I would guess?

Neconilis wrote:

Ahtman wrote:I like the idea that 3/3.5 is somehow 'realistic' and not over the top at all.

He and every other PC in his party had a strict no casters policy I would guess?

Heh. And no multi-classing.

My Paladin/Bard/Sublime Chord/Knight Phantom that had max level bard, mage and paladin spells in full plate with 3/4 BAB/CL and a flying phantom horse disagrees with the realistic assertion of 3.5. 3.5 is more OMG I AM KILLER OF WORLDS than 4e is at this point. 4e needs more splatbooks to get there and it will be harder since multiclassing is much restricted.

Everyone who i ever tried to get playing 4th didn't even bother to try
they'd give me a "its paper WoW" style excuse and not even give two looks.
lame. 3.5 is too rule-heavy!

It's nonsense to suggest that game system has nothing to do with roleplaying. It's perfectly possible to design game systems that promote roleplay, or even promote a particular kind of roleplay. D&D has never had such a system, so I can see how gamers who've pretty much only played that or its clones would assume that whether a group roleplays or not is just down to the members of the group, but it's patently untrue.

Look at any of the New Style Games from Hogshead Publishing, or look at Amber Diceless, or Nobilis, or some of the standouts from the Forge indie gaming community, like My Life With Master or Sorcerer, if you want to see games whose mechanics actively encourage roleplaying.

The worst bit that kills 4E for me is the business model. The core books do not contain all of the core in order to require more purchases by consumers. So instead of making interesting, engaging new product they merely cut a lot of filler into the ols core so that they can spread out the material over several purchases.
Even the "Essentials" line, Mike Mearls' "Olive Branch" to disenfranchised fans does this. Here's a warpriest with domains, but we only give you two. "Stay tuned for more products to give you something useful...".

Actually there are two general builds (melee cleric, stand back and heal cleric) but there are more Domains, you just have to feat into them. The Cleric section is really organized badly though where it has some of their info here, and some of it there but never quite all where you need it.

Tacobake wrote:I would play Dark Heresy and wait for 5th tbh.

I actually have to agree with this. Since I was introduced to Dark heresy I have found it to be an incredibly enjoyable game, so much that I put all my plans for anything D&D dm-ing aside and have been planning and focusing my attention (and subsequently my money...) to Dark Heresy. It's such a wonderful system that allows you to use all that wonderful 40k and other terrain and provides such... freshness? to the rpg systems I have know for so long.

However if all you really want to do is combat, both 4th and pathfinder can provide this. The only problem is you have to spend quite a bit more money (as in more then 3x) for all the 4th books since the system they created allows them to spam books rather than condense it down so you have to spend less. You can do all the same stuff in both games, but playing pathfinder makes my character seem a bit more... personal. Furthermore the lore for the pathfinder world is INCREDIBLE. Really. I'm not lying.

I would recommend going down to your FLGS and looking at both the 4th books and pathfinder books before making your decision.

Something to note is whenever I played 4th, combat took forever... hours on in for just a single encounter. Be this just my group or not, I'm not sure, but as a whole I remember quite a few threads on "Combat takes too long" way back when I was actually looking up stuff about 4th.

utan wrote:The worst bit that kills 4E for me is the business model. The core books do not contain all of the core in order to require more purchases by consumers. So instead of making interesting, engaging new product they merely cut a lot of filler into the ols core so that they can spread out the material over several purchases.
Even the "Essentials" line, Mike Mearls' "Olive Branch" to disenfranchised fans does this. Here's a warpriest with domains, but we only give you two. "Stay tuned for more products to give you something useful...".

Your not the only one who thinks that. It's not like people who play roleplaying games have money falling off trees after all, less books with more is always the way to go.

juraigamer wrote:
However if all you really want to do is combat, both 4th and pathfinder can provide this. The only problem is you have to spend quite a bit more money (as in more then 3x) for all the 4th books since the system they created allows them to spam books rather than condense it down so you have to spend less. You can do all the same stuff in both games, but playing pathfinder makes my character seem a bit more... personal. Furthermore the lore for the pathfinder world is INCREDIBLE. Really. I'm not lying.

Just because pathfinder has less books doesn't mean you get more for less. Sure you have 3 books and all the material is in there. Great. You don't need to buy all of the D&D books to benefit or play the system.

Something to note is whenever I played 4th, combat took forever... hours on in for just a single encounter. Be this just my group or not, I'm not sure, but as a whole I remember quite a few threads on "Combat takes too long" way back when I was actually looking up stuff about 4th.

It depends on party size and level. This has been true of D&D forever though. 3.5 Took ages to resolve high level combat. 4E is actually faster than 3 and 3.5, but does bog down a bit at high levels (due to option glut).

utan wrote:The worst bit that kills 4E for me is the business model. The core books do not contain all of the core in order to require more purchases by consumers. So instead of making interesting, engaging new product they merely cut a lot of filler into the ols core so that they can spread out the material over several purchases.
Even the "Essentials" line, Mike Mearls' "Olive Branch" to disenfranchised fans does this. Here's a warpriest with domains, but we only give you two. "Stay tuned for more products to give you something useful...".

Your not the only one who thinks that. It's not like people who play roleplaying games have money falling off trees after all, less books with more is always the way to go.

No, the core books do have the core material. Hence the name. The other books are optional. You can (and I have) run successful games with just the Big 3. The same that you can run games with just the Big 3 in Pathfinder. The difference is that WOTC produces more books that you can optionally add to your games.

All that being said... There are Pathfinder Zealots and there are D&D Zealots. Wherever the two meet there is no agreement, there is only forum war.

Jurai's advice is solid in one piece. Check them both out and buy the one that appeals to you. I would also try out a test game if the store does them. (I know stores do D&D Encounter games a lot as promos, not sure about Pathfinder.) Always try something before you buy it, if possible.

Can I say "Dragon Warriors" again?

Core book has all the rules you'll ever need to play, plus an adventure and a detailed world background... the game plays quickly... and the setting is a wonderful, gritty, dark, British folkloric one that was quite influential on the Warhammer world (Dragon Warriors was first released back in the early 80s).

I will admit to some personal interest here, as I've worked on the line myself, and the current publisher is a friend, but honestly, I've been playing DW for 25 years, and it's the only tabletop RPG I've kept coming back to over those years.