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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

 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.

If we reverse your anecdote, we'll have the story of how Bo9S was conceived.

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...)

The current 3.5 game I am in started with the DM saying 'you can use anything but Psionics and Bo9S'.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

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.

 warboss wrote:

 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.

You want a citation for a significant segment of the playerbase not liking 4e mechanics?

http://www.paizo.com

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.

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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).

 warboss wrote:

 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

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.

 pretre wrote:

 warboss wrote:

 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

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.

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.

 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.

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."

 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.

 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.

Yeah Cleric or Druid is still more powerful than anything Bo9S put out.

Or any psionic character.

Or any character with enough splat books.