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<--- Loves Pathfinder.

To be fair, I only ever flipped through a 4E book, but both GMs in my group said they hated it, so I felt no need to investigate further. If they weren't going to run it or enjoy playing it, then there was no point in buying it. Also, we were having tons o fun with Pathfinder so "feth it" was my general feelings. It might be great, but I'll never know.

I'm willing to pick up 5th edition at GenCon and read it, at least.

 Buzzsaw wrote:
I didn't like it when I played it in elementary school.

You played 5E in elementary school? Time travel?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:
Also, we were having tons o fun with Pathfinder so "feth it" was my general feelings. It might be great, but I'll never know.

Compared to 3E and Pathfinder, 4E was a complete pleasure to DM.

 kronk wrote:
<--- Loves Pathfinder.

Oh Kronk, and I thought you were so butch!

 Manchu wrote:
Seems like you mistakenly bought D&D for decades, figured out your mistake when you started playing 4E, and can conclude that you don't really like D&D so much as 4E.

For me, I played 2E Revised and I liked that. Then I played 3E and liked that. Then I played 4E and liked it. Then I played Basic and AD&D and liked both of them. And now I am looking forward to 5E.

I would characterize things slightly differently: to go back to the beater car example, it's better then nothing, but inferior to many other things. But other then that quible, it would seem you and I are in complete agreement. I suppose I could quibble about other elements of that characterization... but it seems that we're in agreement that for the folks (like myself) that want 4.5, 5e is not going to be an acceptable substitute.

That said;

 Manchu wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
I didn't like it when I played it in elementary school.

You played 5E in elementary school? Time travel?

Given that the quote is

 Buzzsaw wrote:
Just like to me, it's a strange thing to say "[a]ny new edition will necessarily leave behind the players who refuse to try anything new"; the overwhelming feeling for me and my friends wasn't "this is new and I don't like it." It was "this is old, and I didn't like it when I played it in elementary school."

Are you genuinely confused as to my meaning, or... ?

The irony is that this exchange seems to be a rather fine example of exactly what we are talking about: two camps that cannot be reconciled. After all, it doesn't seem like we're actually disagreeing about anything, just a matter of some semantics. Yet suddenly I've stepped from an HG Wells novel...

 Manchu wrote:

 kronk wrote:
Also, we were having tons o fun with Pathfinder so "feth it" was my general feelings. It might be great, but I'll never know.

Compared to 3E and Pathfinder, 4E was a complete pleasure to DM.

Different strokes for different folks, but that's a topic for another thread. My most fun as a GM was also 4th edition. HackMaster 4th edition.

 Ahtman wrote:

 kronk wrote:
<--- Loves Pathfinder.

Oh Kronk, and I thought you were so butch!

I am butch! I put the but in butch! Wait...

Welcome to the "quiet" town of Phandalin, the main hub of activity for your heroes in the new D&D Starter Set adventure, Lost Mine of Phandelver!

 Manchu wrote:
Seems like you mistakenly bought D&D for decades, figured out your mistake when you started playing 4E, and can conclude that you don't really like D&D so much as 4E.

For me, I played 2E Revised and I liked that. Then I played 3E and liked that. Then I played 4E and liked it. Then I played Basic and AD&D and liked both of them. And now I am looking forward to 5E.

I liked DnD, but my problem was after playing 4E and having a DM that didn't have to challenge the wizards of the group specifically was my main selling point, I don't really know if I could go back to being regulated to 'sidekick' if I'm not playing a magic class.

I don't think I ever really felt challenged by 4E until Epic, which is also when there were a lot of creatures that would steal healing surges as well as/instead of HP.

 Ahtman wrote:
I don't think I ever really felt challenged by 4E until Epic, which is also when there were a lot of creatures that would steal healing surges as well as/instead of HP.

You needed a proper DM.

 pretre wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I don't think I ever really felt challenged by 4E until Epic, which is also when there were a lot of creatures that would steal healing surges as well as/instead of HP.

You needed a proper DM.

Actually I'd agree to that, 4E required more encounters per day.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
I don't think I ever really felt challenged by 4E until Epic, which is also when there were a lot of creatures that would steal healing surges as well as/instead of HP.

You needed a proper DM.

Actually I'd agree to that, 4E required more encounters per day.

Just enforcing one extended rest per 24 hours works pretty well.

We had a lot of success with the more 'old school' type dungeon building/games though. I ran a pretty fun campaign based loosely on the fourthcore stuff where the players were actually entertainer-adventurers whose exploits were watched by the populace. They got bonus points for the longer they went without resting. Which made things all sorts of fun.

Harsh environments and starvation stealing surges was another solution, a bit like ability damage for the same in 3.5.

Excellent idea, never thought of that. I like any mechanic more when I hear how someone has used it to practical effect. I like the idea of exhaustion, hunger, etc., eating up healing surges much, much better than ability damage. I really dislike any mechanic that forces a lot fiddling with secondary stats.

Dark Sun did that but didn't get to play much of it. I suppose I should have been more specific that many of the modules I played didn't really push us to our limits, it just wasn't until the Epic ones that people started paying attention to their healing surges. I played (and ran) a few homebrew games that were a bit more creative with their depletion.

 Ahtman wrote:
Dark Sun did that but didn't get to play much of it. I suppose I should have been more specific that many of the modules I played didn't really push us to our limits, it just wasn't until the Epic ones that people started paying attention to their healing surges. I played (and ran) a few homebrew games that were a bit more creative with their depletion.

Oh modules, good for teaching and quick runs but they aren't exactly good for challenges.

 pretre wrote:

I wonder if I am the only one bothered by the lack of flavor text attached to the abilities? They describe the rules, but not why they have them or how they look in the world.

It's the base preview adventure. I don't think it's going to have as much detail as the monster manual.

Am I wrong for wanting am Ogre miniature based on that pic? It'd be awesome in my WHFB Ogre Kingdoms army.

 pretre wrote:
It's the base preview adventure. I don't think it's going to have as much detail as the monster manual.

I hope so, but that was kind of a big problem I had with 4th. None of the monsters had any explanation for how their abilities worked except roll this and add that. It wasn't too big a problem on some monsters with weapons and claws because I know what a sword looks like, but others were harder to picture. I kind of want it to be a little like warhammer were every rule on a model gets a fluffy explanation for why it exist or at least how to describe it.

I'm trying to think back if D&D has ever provided that level of detail for every ability.

 pretre wrote:
I'm trying to think back if D&D has ever provided that level of detail for every ability.

I don't think so. 3rd was better about some things. Some times you would a description in both fluff and rules. Though there wasn't really much of a brake between fluff and rules. Other times it would just have names of common attacks an abilities.

The 4E MMs are pretty frustrating because they lack the ecological detail of previous editions. It's not to say that MM entries filled you in on EVERYTHING about a monster but they did give you a pretty good sense of what it's all about.

Looking over that page, my concern is the lack of art for the Nothic and Ochre Jelly. I hope the pics are on the facing page or something.

I'm thinking there will be more art/etc, in the monster manual. I imagine this adventure may be a bit more light.

Being "light" is beside the point, unless you mean "light on quality." It seems a bit dumb to include a monster like a nothic with no art or description when you have an ogre picture. I mean, most people playing D&D have heard of ogres and can easily imagine the exact art presented but what "starter" player has ever heard of a nothic? Even just giving a description of a nothic (for example, in the adventure text) would be pretty lame. Like I said, I hope there will be a picture of one somewhere in the Starter Set.

I have no idea what a nothic might look like, or how their gaze thing works. I am guessing that they are like floating tattered cloak with claws. It is 100% guess though.

Nope.

 agnosto wrote:
Am I wrong for wanting am Ogre miniature based on that pic? It'd be awesome in my WHFB Ogre Kingdoms army.

[tinfoil hat time] they probably are in cahoots with GW, and want to boost miniatures sales by requiring at least 50% GW models for all creatures/characters represented on the table [/tinfoil hat time]