Jeremy Mac Donald's page

I will defend Pathfinder's (and 3.5's) diagonal movement rule, because it's the approximation that makes the most sense (mathematically) and comes closest to representing actual distances while keeping things snapped to grid squares for ease of mapping and tactical display. The ONLY defense for 4E's diagonal movement is that it makes things simpler for people who cannot understand basic math and elementary geometry (or, to be fair, may understand them, but can't be bothered to actually apply such basic principles in their play).

There is another reason to use 4Es system beyond just simplicity. The 1-2-1 system gives out pretty good looking effects if those effects are reasonably large. Pretty much beyond a 3 by 3 effect. However since we do have to force thins onto a grid the effect on smaller radius elements is not only hard to remember but they look really wonky in any case. Since most effects in D&D are 3 by 3 or smaller there is some significant pull to just going with the ease of use option.

On a side note, minions in 4E will slaughter parties if run by a GM who uses them to their potential. This is less so with the minions listed with minor static damages in the MM, but if you follow the general rules for minions you do not change anything (including damage) except for their HP, which led to PC death more often than most anything else, merely because they all came built with what amounted to Improved Evasion, so anything beyond a direct hit just wouldn't cut it.

I do not believe this 'general minion rule exists in 4E. There is no conversion guide for minions. Minions are created to be minions and not converted from standard monsters. One does not make 5 'minion' Ancient Red Dragons out of a normal Ancient Red Dragon - there is no conversion guide for doing so. Its possible that the DM might craft an encounter involving, say an adult dragon, and decide that the players are of such level that this Dragons hatching babies will be treated as minions but our DM in this case will have to design the minion hatching from scratch.

Furthermore your contention that minions in 4E cause issues with the system because they are too strong is extremely odd. In fact the common problem 4E DMs have with minions is the opposite - even getting 4 (or 5 at paragon level and beyond) minions does not actually equal the power level of a standard monster - its not usually even that close unless the minions have some seriously bad ass powers like they explode for bucko damage when killed or they have been very well set up (archer minions spread far apart around a large room).

Stereofm wrote:

I have zero interest in 5th right now.

I have zero interest in 4th right now.

Sure, it made a few changes that I like, but it continued the feel of playing an MMO on a tabletop which was started with 3rd and continued with PRPG. I want a new edition where I do not feel like I am forced to use battle mats and miniatures and a slide rule to fight a battle. I want the imagination back in the game.

If they went with a 'build your own version of D&D' type model I could imagine them putting out a book on how to play without miniatures but otherwise its highly doubtful. For one its hard to imagine a version of D&D that actually had a VTT that was not pretty miniature dependent and its unlikely that they would make a version of the game that was not meant to also have a VTT for the extra revenue potential. Furthermore versions of the game that include a table top component are generally more profitable because you then get to sell consumers books full of feats that are all about adjusting movement. Cut the table top element and you straight out have less content you can generate for the game.

It just seems to detrimental to their business model to take this route unless there is some significant reason to believe that the majority of their potential customers want a game without miniatures. Doubtful because there are some pretty good miniatureless games out there and if miniatures where a break point for their customers those games would have a bigger market share.

The key is verisimilitude. No magic will be fully realistic. What some people (myself included) are interested in is an internally consisten fantasy world where events are justified, so that nothing that happens feels like it is a TV Trope pulled out of a hat and powered by plot or GM fiat. It's a playstyle, a roleplaying approach preferred by some...

For me this depends a lot at the angle we view the verisimilitude from. In some sense what is it that we are trying to simulate. Are we trying to see what a fantasy combat might look like over all or are we looking at what might be possible by physics at any given point in time?

For example there was a chain tripping fighter in my last 3.5 campaign and what he did every round was spin in circle tripping every enemy within 15 feet of him, knocking them prone and then smacking them. I've seen a martial character do that in 4E as well though with a spear. Everyone within 15 feet that he hit gets smacked to the ground. Thing is in 4E that happens once or twice in a fight (because it costs a power). In 3.5 the chain tripping fighter was a perpetual motion tripping machine spinning on and endless loop. Nor was this the only martial build like that. All of them where designed so that, after the first few levels, they performed something that looked like a superheroic feat of skill and effort and then they did pretty much that over and over again in perpetuity every round.

I even got to see this effect in action side by side in 4E since Essentials returned to a model where the martial characters have one move and players build up that one move with feats to make it ever more awesome. So we had our monk with his array of abilities that might see everyone around him getting smacked and falling down or maybe he leaps fifteen feet across the room connects with a baddie who flies 10 feet backward smacking into a wall etc.

Then there was the Essentials Charging Thief, a build that seemed to me to be pretty much a mirror of a charging Scout/Fighter I had seen in 3.5. What he does is he charges into combat and kaboom a ton of hps worth of damage are done. Then he uses feats etc. on his next turn - runs away then turns around and Charge - Kaboom again...and again...and again etc.

Neither are realistic but the monk looked like he was straight out of a Jackie Chan movie (heck the designers probably watched some Jackie Chan movies to get ideas for the monks powers). The Charging Thief actually struck me as far more problematic in terms of verisimilitude, perpetual charge, run away, charge, run away is actually really hard to explain in terms of look and feel despite the idea that if you could do it last round then obviously you can do it this round as well.

The argument seems to be that if a figure skater can do one quadruple axle during her routine she must be able to do quadruple axles on command as often as she wants.

In effect if I am describing a scene from one of the combats it always seemed like it was high octane fantasy but within that context 4Es power dependent classes actually seem more plausible then martial builds designed to do one thing repeatedly and have it that thing souped up with every game resource a player can throw at it.

Hence the verisimilitude depends on the perspective one is looking at it from. Are we viewing this as what a fantasy combat might look like over all? Or are we sitting in our chair wondering why, if Thelgar the Mighty could do the mighty overhand chop last round why can't he do the same thing again this round?

I have zero interest in 5th right now.

Same boat here - especially considering that many of the things I think 4E did right in terms of narrativism, the more limited magic system and the skill system (emphasis on balance as well though to a little lesser extent) are all things Mr. Mearls seems to feel are the areas where 4E stumbled. A position I vehemently disagree with and one where what is usually being talked up, in the legend Lore Articles, generally sound like inferior replacements. What is being discussed as the replacement skill system being especially egregious in my opinion.

There are other reasons as well, mainly I actually like, for the most part, the place where the game currently is. I think the majority of the problematic early bugs have been generally worked out or errata'd and the quality of a lot of the material is more consistent and generally better. The quality of the monsters in the recent monster books being a prime example. In essence I feel that they have really gotten the system up to where it ought to be in terms of quality and I'd be more then happy to spend the next 4 years seing it be used on quality adventures and campaign settings.

That said if they use Monte to make a big book of Unearthed Arcana I would not mind plundering that for elements for my campaign so long as I can stay away from his bad ideas and incorporate only what I like of his material.

If WOTC would just focus on fleshing out their adventures and their game worlds (and ideally choose different ones. I've HATED FR and Eberron almost from the start, regardless of edition.) They would probably see more business. They have a great, clean ruleset out there, forget those that haven't made the change, you're most likely not getting them back, stop pining for the lost lover. Instead create something memorable that uses the outstanding rules you made, that will make people want to use the system, to more easily digest the material.

I want 4E modules as well done as the PF AP's, so I don't have to convert them each time to my favorite edition.

Pretty much agree with this. That said some of the biggest issues I have with WotCs products are that they often seem to have little real understanding of what the system can do and therefore how to best leverage some of its strengths.

For example 4E is excellent at handling things like higher level murder mysteries or political intrigues. However such adventures are few and far between. Instead we are deluged with adventures that often read like slightly spruced up delves. While there is nothing inherently wrong with a delve its not something that really generates much buzz and its extremely easy for a DM to make that sort of adventure in 4E in any case.

Better to offer a more eclectic mix of adventures and really let some of the more talented writers (often free lancers) loose to push the envelope. There will always be room for a good old hack heavy D&D adventure but I want to see more adventures that feel like they could have come from an episode of Law & Order: Swords and Sorcery or explore other more complex themes.

At a fundamental core rules level the system supports the style very well but one still needs to hire the writer to think up the shocking plot twist and that writer needs to understand the system well enough to be able to translate the ramifications of that plot twist into 4E mechanics.

Unfortunately I generally think Mike Mearls is not the right person for this job. His favorite kind of D&D is the dungeon with fantastic monsters and cunning traps. Nothing wrong with that style, The well received Castle Maure is just this type of adventure. Unfortunately that style of game, while possible, tends to play to 4Es weak points and not its strengths. Something like Murder at Oakbridge or maybe a kind of idealized version of Castle Ravenloft, but with less combats then the original I6 - but make them bigger and have them range all over half a floor (or up and down one of the towers) with lots of interactive elements, play to its strengths.

I noticed when doing Age of Worms conversions that the adventures worked best when I seriously reduced the total number of encounters but made the ones that did take place large and complex I generally had much better results then when I allowed and adventure to turn into combat encounter followed by combat encounter repeatedly.

4E is very good at doing flashy combats with lots of movement and special moves but such scenes are also, in terms of pacing, pretty exhausting. Trying to string them together generally does not give anywhere as good results as spacing them out more with significant plot and narrative in between.

The problem from my perspective is that WotC rarely seems to appreciate this. We have a system where even at 15th level the skill system is still the dominant method for ferreting out the clues for the murder mystery and where the group is forced to interact with the NPC cast of the adventure and yet there are very few adventures that support these elements.

One thing the thread has not been considering is that South Korea can't easi;y do anything without China's blessing. China is far and away South Korea's largest trading partner. There practically is not a single manufactured good in the entire country, from toaster ovens to computers, that does not have Chinese components. South Korea could, with difficulty, play ball while the US made frowny faces but they absolutely must have China and Japans OK before getting into such adventurism.

If they did so it would probably come as part of an agreement to ask the Americans to leave Korea, at which point a united Korea more beholden to Beijing then to any one else might be acceptable to China.

If you say so.

I thought that Kim Il-sung had approached Stalin about invading the south and he had said "Sure, go ahead, but I don't want to be involved, go see what Mao says."

They sent some materiel assistance, but Soviet involvement in the Northern war effort seemed to be pretty minimal for a full-on proxy war.

The element of North Korea getting Stalin's approval and very limited support is accurate but the Chinese where not consulted. If they had been and given any say what so ever they would have vetoed the idea. The last thing China wanted was a new war. They had just finished winning the Chinese Civil War that had been ongoing in some manner or another since 1912 a few months ago. The Communist Chinese where desperate to consolidate power and start implementing their grand visions to reform China. War completely interrupted that and used up practically every drop of their very limited foreign exchange.

For the Chinese the Korean War was a disaster in which they felt compelled to choose between the lesser of two evils.

Comrade Anklebiter wrote:

The Korean War never officially ended.

I don't think Stalin himself had much to do with the Korean War. I'm pretty sure it was Stalin who agreed to the division of Korea into North and South.

Him dying was one of the things that allowed the ceasefire in the first place.

Doubtful. While Russia was very important for North Korea in establishing their army and providing initial support by 1953 it was really Beijing that was calling the shots.

That said by 1953 Mao wanted peace. He had not wanted the war in the first place and with it going nowhere for either side it was high on everyone's agenda to bring the thing to an end.

Rust Monster has always been adorable.

My personal favourite for cute monster as well. I have a penchant for giving one as a pet to the 14 year old young lady the PCs have to save any time that sort of scenario shows up. Opens the door to all sorts of antics in the adventure.

2nd place goes to Giant Space Hamsters.

I certainly agree with the above explanations as far as they go but Tucker's Kobold's are much more then just the article. Their advent created was part of the whole paradigm shift in how monsters where presented throughout the game.

We certainly where seeing more interesting 'Boss' Monsters by this point but their lacky's where still generally pretty straight forward creatures. The idea that there where some types of monsters that one found on level one of the dungeon and others, much more powerful, that one found on level 13 of the dungeon was already waning but certianly not dead yet.

The idea that tuckers kobolds could be really nasty also ushered in a whole movement to look more closely at terrian etc. and have the bad guysm kobold or otherwise, try and use its environment to its advantage if it reasonably could.

In effect a movement away from having monsters live in main;y empty rooms with a few pieces of 'dungeon dressing' and a chest and to have them fight it out with the adventurers when they showed up.

Its part of, and an important part, the movement that makes our encounters generally more complex and requires there to usually be some kind of rationalization as to why you and this horrible thing are in a fight to the death - a rational beyond...it lives on level 8 of the dungeon and your down here killing all the monsters on level 8 because you already cleared out levels 1-7 and anyway it might have treasure and is definitely worth XP.

AoW tends to be reasonably heavily dungeon orientated with a few urban and wilderness adventures. I actually found it less dungeon heavy then Shackled City which, in some sense, turned everything into a dungeon.

AoW is much more conscious of what its doing IMO So when its not a Dungeon that is a bit more clear cut.

AoW features undead heavily (though you may not want to emphasize this...undead can be a real push over when facing down a class build specifically to clobber them).

The Campaign moves around a fair bit while the campaign explores and elaborates on the mythology of a God straight out of 1st edition. The campaigns strong point is epic look and feel. Battle THE Undead Dragon, participate in the gladiatorial games to fight for the purse in the capital in front of huge crowds, attemnpt to retrieve an item of immense power and ancient history while all around flights of Dragons do battle with an army of Giants in a show down 1000 years in the making.

loimprevisto wrote:

The reason I decided to post was that someone mentioned Guy Gavriel Kay; I simply could not finish The Summer Tree. I'm not sure what distinguished it from all the terrible books I've slogged through, but it stands alone as a book I don't plan to finish. He even meets the threshold for critically acclaimed according to the awards section of his Wikipedia article.

THE SUMMER TREE isn't very good, nor is his whole first trilogy (and the only trilogy he's ever written), which he wrote under the influence of working on Tolkien (he co-edited some of the latter parts of THE SILMARILLION alongside Christopher Tolkien). His critical reputation rests on his stand-alones, particularly THE LIONS OF AL-RASSAN and the recent UNDER HEAVEN (TIGANA also gets a lot of respect in some quarters). His most 'literary' effort was THE SARANTINE MOSAIC, a duology riffing on the history of Byzantium, though I think both AL-RASSAN and UNDER HEAVEN are better.

I quite enjoyed the Fionavar Tapestry myself. I do very much agree that its the kind of book that should be on this sort of list. Its possible that its just my neck of the woods but the series just seems more main stream then just about everything else in fantasy. By which I mean that I know a bunch of people that otherwise don't read fantasy fiction that have read and enjoyed this series.

No surprise to me that this is the case either as has been pointed out above he was pretty heavily influenced by Tolkien. The Fionavar Tapestry is something like a version of Tolkien that also happens to be readable.

All that said, while I enjoyed The Summer Tree this series did not really become anything special for me until The Darkest Road. Its been many, many, years but I recall really enjoying that book and thinking it was a great way to wrap up a fantasy series.

You could possibly be immune to the dying condition (fairly powerful item in that case). Dropping to 0 gives you both the dying and unconscious condition. Dying means you have to make death saves. If you were immune to the dying condition, then no death saves and you would only die at -bloodied value (essentially +50% hp if you were immune to dying). Regardless, you would not be immune to death even if immune to dying, as death itself is NOT a condition, and is the result of having -bloodied value in HP.

Not sure it'd need to be all that powerful a magic item really. Its fairly trivial to get enough bonuses to the death save that actually failing the roll three times would take a great many rounds.

There is a Revenant Build around this where you take feats etc. that mean you don't go unconscious when reduced to 0 hps and then get enough bonuses on the death saves that your not going to die that way...the problem is then the DM just keeps whacking you and you end up past negative bloodied before to long and end up dead.

Since most DMs stop hitting downed characters the build is usually actually counter productive, only being good in those campaigns where the DM does the whole evil laughter thing before specifically targeting downed characters while reminding the players that downed characters get -5 to all defences (my DM is like this).

It'd be very unlikely such an item would ever be created as to many game effects exist around the bloodied condition and making such an item would have some significant potential to create really odd holes in the rules that might be a real nightmare for a DM to try and close up simply because the rules suddenly seem to be contradicting themselves.

That said it would not actually make a character immortal. The Bloodied Condition has its own rules and such but they are only very loosely tied to actually dieing. The RC says that a adventurer dies when s/he reaches their bloodied value expressed as a negative number. There is no reason to think that a character would not have a bloodied value even if it happened to be immune to the bloodied condition. In fact if a character has hps it also automatically has a bloodied value.

To be immortal you would have to be immune to hp damage...which, oddly enough, I could see coming up in the game much more readily then being immune to the bloodied condition.

In regards to insubstantial wraiths.

It seems likely that one would want to follow on Pence's advice but I personally suggest that 4E DMs take this a step further.

Insubstantial is really a very poor mechanic. It effectively doubles the HPs of the target creature without really doing much else of interest. It its basically boring with its only saving grace being that it makes radiant shine.

A better option for 4E DMs, in my opinion, is to revert pretty close to the 3rd edition rules here. Halve the hps (or maybe even more then halve them for this specific encounter) and then use a 50% miss chance except with radiant having no miss chance at all.

A 50% miss chance is functionally the equivalent of the 1/2 damage we currently have but it is much, much, more exciting in play. Where insubstantial currently feels like a slog a miss chance actually tends to really heighten the excitement of an encounter with players swearing a blue streak whenever their attack just out right misses. If your players are swearing about monsters that is a really good thing for your game - you've got them riveted on the action and really that is where the DM wants his players focus to be in combat.

Kelsey Arwen MacAilbert wrote:

It's not about wanting WotC to be my buddy. It's about them repeatedly screwing over their business partners. Paizo, White Wolf, Drive Thru RPG, and RPG Now all got the shaft from them, and I'm sure there are others. I can't bring myself to trust them after that.

Plus, the whole pdf debacle only harms one group of people: their customers.

When did Paizo express that they were shafted? As far as I know they were ok with the buisness changes. I can't speak for the other companies, but Paizo said they weren't screwed over.

Well its a case of being unhappy with the fact that ones cheese has gotten moved versus being mistreated.

Paizo was unhappy - they had been growing Dungeon and Dragon constantly and where doing an excellent job. They where pretty clearly less then pleased to have that contract ended.

On the other hand WotC in no way shape or form screwed them. They had the products under licence and where fully aware that their licence could be ended in agreed upon manner. In the case of Paizo (and Marget Weis as well) WotC was extraordinarily lenient allowing the companies to continue to work past the end of the licence in order to finish up products that where parts of series.

Skill-wise, 4e has nothing that I found worth noting it for. The skill list was consolidated some, which was nice. But, I found no use whatsoever for skill challenges. I have seen skill challenges fill one of two functions;

First, Replacing Roleplaying encounters with more die-rolling. Why talk to the guard in character if you can win him over regardless with three successes before four failures? It's not as though we want to explore character depth in person, right? Maybe this has simply been used incorrectly in every campaign I've been in, but this system does not at all appeal to me when implemented thus.

Secondly, To add variety to an adventure by forcing the player characters to use skill checks to accomplish something, as opposed to resorting to combat. This was mentioned above, and I still don't see the attraction. This means the group has a primary interest in combat, meaning the system is being used to force the PCs to act in a way they'd rather not. Sounds Fun.

All in all, I found that while it's insisted by many that the book focus on combat and mechanics was a means of encouraging roleplaying, it simply didn't come across. I have watched 4e groups minimise the story in order to properly appreciate the combat, and I have watched groups minimise the mechanics in favor of creating a fun story. I've also watched the two halves be combined into a very good mix of story and mechanics; usually by people who enjoyed such games in previous editions. But the rules simply don't make this easy.

I'll say that one of the major elements that keeps me happy with the 4E system is in fact the skill system and the amount of space that 4E has opened up in terms of combat light adventures. I'll address your points specific to skill challenges later and start with the general reasons I like 4E for dealing with combat light adventures.

In general this comes down to 4Es emphasis on the group as a whole for actually interacting with such adventures and a movement away from individual 'spotlight' moments. Essentially all 4E characters are, by design, meant to operate equally well inside or outside of combat. It is not the case that interacting with NPCs is where the Bard shines and the Fighter should just hang back while his player grabs a soda while waiting for something to kill. Nor are higher level mysteries or political intrigues about the mage carefully choosing his spells to answer the questions posed by the adventure or resolve its dilemma's. In these cases the system has been designed to de-emphasize the idea that such adventures are really the bullywhack of only one of the character classes and instead moved things much more toward group efforts.

This is very important if you plan to have long stretches of the game not be about combat because, if dealing with such elements of the adventure, is what the whole group does instead of some individuals in the group then its far easier to devote whole sessions and even multiple sessions to such elements. The DM does not feel as much need to have combat breaking out just so that the player of the fighter can actually participate in the game.

In general this is accomplished through three elements of 4E.

1. The system has much tighter skill spreads so everyone can get in on that jail break scene even if it does not involve killing every thing that moves.

2. The system emphasizes team work at the encounter level so characters are designed to be on par with each other inside and outside of combat instead of there being classes that are specialized in combat and classes whose job it is to do the roleplaying.

3. The system has specifically de-emphasized 'plot breaking' magic. Wizards cannot easily take over the minds of NPCs, Nor can they utilize magic to easily circumvent distance or barriers, Clerics cannot (until very high level) ask their Gods what they think the answers to the mystery are. The result is that most of these elements now fall to the group as a whole to solve or navigate.

OK on to answering a couple of your specific points regarding skill challenges. Its worth noting that a skill challenge is really a complex series of skill checks and it only ever gets invoked by starting off with that first skill check. In effect if a diplomacy check is needed to handle the guard then there may be more too it then just that diplomacy check (i.e. a skill challenge) but your not in a skill challenge unless your already at the point where your trying to make a skill check. In other words skill challenges are a way of adding more elements and complexity to the skill system but do not replace elements of the game unless they would already been handled with skill checks. There may be some exceptions here in terms of using the system narratively to replace pure exposition or combat, for example the battle scene I mention below but it is not really a method for replacing roleplaying unless the DM really wants it to be since skill challenges are designed by the DM and they come into play when the DM decides they do.

I'm not sure what you mean by using skill checks to force players to avoid combat. I mean I've used skill checks and skill challenges to avoid combat for sure, the quintessential example is using stealth or some combination of stealth and other skills to sneak past guards, a situation that often results in a combat if the players fail and are noticed but I'm not sure how this is forcing the PCs to use skills when they would rather just fight. I'd need more elaboration on that.

One example I can think of in this regards that might come up is using skill challenges narratively. A very common example of this is in the midst of battle. An army of 10,000 Orcs has arrived at the Gates of Zar-Maldur and the armies of humans and dwarves have gathered to oppose them. The PCs, are there and they are 12th level. We don't really want to play through them battling hundreds and hundreds of Orcs so we instead we move this up a level in the meta game and play through this part of the adventure narratively using a skill challenge. Here its likely that the players and DM are weaving something of the story assuming that the players are cutting down scores of Orcs but what we are really interested in may well be something else. Maybe their goal is actually to get into a battle - specifically the battle with the Orc Warlord and his retinue. Depending on the DMs adventure failure in this skill challenge may mean they don't get into this battle at all (likely with problematic consequences for the armies of good) in which case we know that the players where at the battle of Zar-Maldur and they even killed hundreds of Orcs there but they where not at the right place to significantly effect the outcome. Alternatively maybe the skill challenge is used to tell us under what circumstances they get to the key battle with the Orc Warlord, many failures and the circumstances of this battle will be weighed in the Orc Warlords favour many successes and the PCs have more advantages.

To sum everything up I gravitate to 4E in large part because it is such an excellent system in terms of group roleplaying. Its mechanics help to facilitate my designing and successfully running things like higher level fantasy murder mysteries or political intrigues while insuring that everyone in the group can have fun and participate as an important and equal member of the party even when the swords stay sheathed.

I think this is pretty much a style issue. Essentially a cosmology of a 'science' of magic versus an 'art' of magic. Pre-4E the system was a science of magic. Especially true in say 1E (but elements are certianly there in 2nd and 3rd) where the spells went out of their way to specify exactly what components where needed to cast a spell and also what your mage is 'doing' to cast the spell whether the spell has verbal, somatic etc. components.

In effect the idea is that there are universal 'laws' of magic. If you have know the correct words and hand gestures (probably through learning) and have some bat fur and a pinch of sulphur then its simply a matter of going through the correct hand gestures while saying the correct words and voila you have a spell. The underlying conceit is that anyone who knows the correct way of performing the ritual, has the correct components and is practised enough to do the rigid acts perfectly can cause a very specific spell effect to take place.

4E hints at this idea with rituals which anyone can use if they have the correct ritual, the correct components and have the ritual caster feat (representing the training) but most magic in 4E is 'art' in the sense that the powers are specific to an individual, they and few if any others have exactly the same types of powers and accessing such powers was an individualistic journey which resulted in them gaining these powers (either through formal training - pacts with magical creatures or maybe they where just born with magic coursing through their veins or a Goddess cast an enchantment on their cradle or what have you and then had a journey of self discovery to learn to harness their power.

One of the interesting elements in this regard when comparing 4E to previous editions is 'how special is special?'. I noted above that the players where pretty unique in 4e. This stems from the fact that it is the 4 or 5 people sitting around the table with player characters that are the one and only people using the character builder to make their PCs. While the players may have an idea of what all the powers in the game are like and what the different character archetypes look like they make them using a resource that only they have access too - the result is that they are technically completely unique in the the entire campaign world - no one else is like them.

However if the DM wants access to the same kinds of powers he does in fact have such access through the Monster Builder. In effect during the campaign each DM really should make a conscious choice about how special special really is. If the DM wants to give the impression that the powers the characters have access to are more universal with many people learning the same sorts of things then the DM needs to make many NPCs that access the players powers, conversely if the DM wants to go the route of everyone in the world really being a unique individual who wields magic (and even mundane weapons) with their own signature style then the DM generally should avoid using player powers when designing NPCs.

Personally I take the second option only using player type powers if the PC suddenly comes face to face with their evil twin or is actually battling the wizard who originally tuaght them or some other dramatic element like this where it makes sense that the NPC has the same types of powers as the PC and I want to emphasize this for dramatic and story reasons.

And I could do it in the same time in 3E. I don't see the problem.

But would you do that with a Dragon? I mean I perfectly understand that if you really want the DM can just pretend to make d20 rolls and arbitrary decide if the monster hit or not and you don't really need hps the DM can simply decide when he feels its a good time to say that last hit killed the creature. In the end stat blocs are not really needed and can be used just to jog the DMs mind for ideas.

Not sure I'd ever do it but I can understand the concept...but I can't say I understand doing that with something like a Dragon.

I can't talk for him, but I can for me. The system seems to be designed for people who have things to do at the weekend other than work to create the next session. It doesn't assume you are a teenage nerd with nothing else to do, like 3e in particular does, but seems designed to be played and enjoyed by people who are busy adults, making the whole experience easier and quicker. That strikes me as a pragmatic appeal to the same demographic who were teenage nerds when they started playing D&D, but aren't anymore. That's not a DDI thing - it was there before, with the simplified rules on creating monsters and NPCs, for example.

It also acknowledges that actually some ideas coming out of other media (1) exist and (2) may actually improve the game, like (in particular) computer games. 3e really references virtually nothing outside other pen-and-paper RPGs - that puts in in a particular time and place - pre-interenet, pre-modern (that word again) PCs.

And DDI, to some extent comes into the picture. CharGen, funnily enough, is just a tool, but the constantly updated rules set in the Compendium are probably moving more to bringing tabletop RPGs to the potential of modern web-based computing than most other games I am aware of, potentially replacing books in their entirety.

So, yeah, there is a plausible case to say 4e is more modern than 3e. I'm sure you'll go and split some hairs over this...

I want to add to what Aubrey's saying here by pointing out that D&D has, since 2nd, generally followed other trends in the RPG market. Sometimes it uses its resources to identify a trend and then jump ahead - this being what happened with the 4E character builder - the trend was for computerized character builders, they have been a growing phenomenal since the really elaborate excel spread sheet character builders at the start of 3rd edition. What happened with 4E was that a trend was taken up and massive resources where pumped into taking it to the next level.

In the past we have seen how this trend following mindset meant that Vampire the Masquarade would heavily influence the direction D&D would take (and what it would emphasize) through out large parts of 2nd edition. In the smae vein 4E would never have existed in the present form it has if games like Savage Worlds and Spirit of the Century had not started cleaning up awards from right and left and heralded in the modern 'rules light' era of RPGs. Even great games like Spirit of the Century probably would not have made the splash they did a couple of decades ago...they could only be seen as the great games they are in light of demographic trends that say that the modern RPG player is married, has a career and 1-2 rug rats meaning that the amount of time he has to prep is dramatically less then the all night beer and pizza fueled games of his college days.

In this sense 4E is a modern game - its a product of its time just as 3rd was a product of its time and 2nd was a product of its time.

I don't allow whatever in my game, but that leads to grief from certain players, who expect that this is allowed (wishlisting giving them everything they want, random treasure is lame and bad etc). And if they don't find what they want, the item-creation rules are easy enough to circumvent the DM and create what you want. And if the DM disallows that, certain players scream that you are a bad DM...

While this isn't edition-specific, I find that 4e lends more to that mindset than other editions.

I've done every edition since first to last. It's just that the mindset of the game has moved in this direction, and I prefer an older mindset I suppose.

It seems a little odd that you have come away with this mind set since its quite clear that the design elements behind the 4E magic item delivery system where built to get around the issues with the Magic Item Shoppe from 3.x. In other words the system places almost all the the choices for handing out Magic Items in the hands of the DM compared to 3.5 where it was felt that most groups most of the time simply sold the items and bought what they really wanted.

I think part of the difference in newer players want to play characters that are heroes right out of the box. Some of us older players want to play characters that become heroes (or die trying).

I don't think this is actually a split based on editions at all. Instead I'd argue that its really a style issue. The problem is not 'hero's from the get go' but DMs that write plot elements about the hero's. In effect if every player controls a 'stable' of PCs chances are the game is going to be pretty brutally lethal.

On the other hand if your character starts out with a 2 page background and you and the DM spent an hour and forty five minutes at a coffee shop prior to the first session working out how your secretly the youngest son of the Rivenrell Merchant House who was traded to a demon when you where just a toddler in exchange for a cure for your eldest brothers ailment...well now you can bet that the DM is not out to get you before this story develops a lot more.

Its not video games or 'new players' that are the root of this - we see the beginning of this style way back in 1E with the release of Dragonlance. The real culprit here is player driven sub plots. Once the story starts to be sp3ecifically about the players and the game is being interwoven around them then their death starts becoming extremely disruptive to the campaign as a whole and they stop dying nearly so often.

Not sure what your DM does but one of the first things I do when I sit down to run a campaign is choose the lethality level. Reality is the DM controls that element of the game and can dial it forward or back at will (I don't even mean fudging - I never need to fudge). My most lethal campaign was actually in 3.5 since I choose a lethality level of 'on average one character will die per level...the other five will make it'. They did not die at exactly 1 per level - there was some clumping with half the party wiped out and some levels no one bought the farm but looking back I note that over a campaign that went to 14th level I got exactly 14 characters.

This was actually a higher lethality level then I had run in 1st and much higher then what I was doing in 2nd (because of all those plots in 2nd...did not want to kill anyone and disrupt the story).

The bottom line is that the game is as lethal as the DM decides it will be irrespective of edition. Furthermore the DM should be making that choice based on what style of game he plans to run (probably in consultation with the players). If its full of player sub-quests then lethality will need to be dialed down while a 'back to the dungeon' style game where the players themselves are not particularly integral to the plot can be one were characters die reasonably often. No doubt most DMs choose some kind of middle ground which is fine but does have some danger of getting into DM favouritism (DM does not want to kill off the player that was just possessed by the Goddess of Knowledge) so that has to be guarded against.

Stefan Hill wrote:

If I may quote "Even this powerful spell does not negate the shock of the experience".

*SIGH*

I miss rules such as this...

It may be considered "unfun" by today's standards, but this rule for example just made sense...

I mean, getting beaten to the point of unconsciousness is a fairly traumatic experience, and I think that the game should reflect this; not that I've personally had this particular displeasure, I'm just saying...

I'd rather toss this sort of thing into the DM/players court rather then deal with it on an official rule type level. I find to many 'flavour' rules can clutter up the game and some of them can get in the way of play for some groups while being fine for others.

A good example is the rule in 1E where you had to where a helmet as every 5th attack was to the head. At the table the rule was practically irreverent since you got the appropriate helmet along with the armour though I suppose if you found a magic item that was a hat or some such the rule would suddenly apply. The main place I found it really applying was with the characters views of their character - Those in leather viewed themselves as dashing Errol Flynn types and the leather skull cap just did not fit into the image same could be true with any character - often the head ear clashed with their view of how their character looked and it seemed like such an otherwise irrelevant rule - you can't have your character running around the game according to your vision of the character because you have to where very specific types of hats or the system will punish you.

I can believe that there are groups out there who can't stand all these half naked people running around with swords and for that group rules saying you need to be in X armour and that includes all the under padding etc. But this group should look to their DM to add in such rules rather then have the game try and cover everything imaginable.

We can solve this problem by increasing the number of prosecutors, judges, laws, and the size of government. Don't you know? Increasing government is the only way to achieve social justice!
(yes, I'm being sarcastic)

I'd actually argue that there is a certain amount of truth to the idea that these ideas can be solved by increasing the size of government. Furthermore it works in both directions. You can shrink the size of government through reversing this.

I'm going to bet that if we see something akin to western style democracy in Libya you will also immediately see a very impressive ballooning of the size of their bureaucracy and nowhere will that be more clear then in looking at how their their criminal justice system evolves.

I can be reasonably sure that this will take place because it pretty much always does. Western Democratic systems are underpinned by large bureaucratic apparatuses - especially when it comes to the justice system.

If your state is a basic dictatorship you can get away with a very streamlined justice system. You need police to arrest criminals and some one with the authority to pass judgment on them - that is pretty much it. Things get more complex and expencive if the judge is not deciding based on his or her whim but must interpret actual codified laws. In this case it takes the judge much longer so you need more judges to hear all the cases. In the West we generally use one of two systems of justice - either some version of the Napoleonic Code or a system derived from English Common Law.

While versions of the Napoleonic Code are smaller and cheaper both add layers to the justice system in the form of things like appeals as well as assigning people to specifically take the side of the prosecution and the accused and argue their side of the story. This of course increases government significantly beyond simply having one person with the power to pass judgment. Systems that are derived from English Common Law are even larger and more expensive as they go so far as to bring in the accused peers and then have these peers go through the motions of actually deciding guilt or innocence. Not only does this add more layers to the system but, of course, we now have to herd these 12 people around and the system takes even longer (so now we need even more judges etc.) because the accused peers are not trained in the law so they pretty much have to have a crash course in the legal system for every single case.

All in all the justice system used in the west, and especially systems using a jury of ones peers, are prime examples of why our government bureaucracies are so huge. A glance through where the governments of the west spend their money will show that our justice systems are pretty high up the food chain in terms of government expenditures.

Further things like mandatory sentencing can in fact work to shrink the size of the bureaucracy. Turning the judges into clerks with no discretionary power but simply people who cross index the crime with the punishment in the codex of laws saves time which allows there to be more cases heard. It also reduces the need for all sorts of specialized education so it may eventually be possible to seriously save on salaries. Obviously cutting out other fat in the system like juries and maybe even lawyers would allow one to save a great deal more taxpayer money while streamlining the system and shrinking government.

Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:

houstonderek wrote:

Stefan Hill wrote:

Couple that with the fact (not opinion) that if you went unconscious you lost all of your spells it was tough sometimes even being an Archmage.

S.

I need a cite for this. I don't remember anything like this in the 1e rules, and it would have made a specific statement in A4 (the last of the Slaver series) false.

If it's a 2e thing, don't bother. I have a particular amount of bile for that edition similar to what some here seem to have for 4e.

How would it even come up? I don't think there is a deaths door rule in 1E so your just dead at 0 hps. Sleep does not eliminate the spells...I'm actually not aware of any way for a wizard to go unconscious except maybe some obscure spell...the more common ones stun or put people to sleep but actually knock them out? I don't recall it ever coming up.

1e still had the 'deaths door' thing, only it wasn't called that. I'll find the page number to both assertions. Don't want to be the little boy who cried wolf.

Well don't bother starting in the 1E DMG - that's where I looked (as the book was reasonably at hand) and I did not see anything like this. I could have missed it of course but I'd look in the 1E PHB 1st.

As for deaths door...I'm pretty skeptical that this actually existed in 1E. Possibly, maybe, in Unearthed Arcana had it or Wilderness Survival Guide or some such but I'd be surprised. In 2E its listed as an optional rule and I think that was the first time it entered the game on a solid official status. Not saying you did not have it in your game of course - I mean we did in 1E as well but we also had that a 20 was a critical hit so it was house rule city at my table.
In the base system? I'm pretty skeptical. Its listed as a optional rule in the 2nd edition players handbook. I expect it was in some dragon article or some such in 1E as well

Stefan Hill wrote:

Couple that with the fact (not opinion) that if you went unconscious you lost all of your spells it was tough sometimes even being an Archmage.

S.

I need a cite for this. I don't remember anything like this in the 1e rules, and it would have made a specific statement in A4 (the last of the Slaver series) false.

If it's a 2e thing, don't bother. I have a particular amount of bile for that edition similar to what some here seem to have for 4e.

How would it even come up? I don't think there is a deaths door rule in 1E so your just dead at 0 hps. Sleep does not eliminate the spells...I'm actually not aware of any way for a wizard to go unconscious except maybe some obscure spell...the more common ones stun or put people to sleep but actually knock them out? I don't recall it ever coming up.

The Player's Handbookk for 4E D&D is not nearly as well written as, say, 2E. I had to look up on the internet what the starting gold was!

I recall startying Gold sometimes being pretty complex in 2E. Its different per class IIRC and that might be modified by things like the kit you took or other rules as the edition wore on.

Assuming you're using the newer monsters for 4th edition, at what levels do other people find that the combat length starts to equal the time (or become less then) Pathfinder/3rd edition?

Like at lower levels, Pathfinder seems much faster for combat encounters. Wondering if others have noticed when this stops being true.

There are a lot of complicating factors and I suspect that the answer may depend on different groups to some degree. Nonetheless I found that 4E took longer then 3.5 from level 1 and it would actually get worse until about 7th level at which point the trend reversed. By about 10th I found them to take roughly the same amount of time and from 12th on 3.5 starts to take significantly longer then 4E.

Once again however there are many factors that influence this. 3.5 with no spell casters is much faster then a spell caster (or psionic) heavy party at higher levels. Certain kinds of 4E encounters can really add to the length of a combat - especially ones that shut down manoeuvrability in a group that likes to get up close and personal. Likewise if you've ever been in a higher level buff fest in 3.5 you know that if the party has a pretty good idea what is beyond the door and all the time they want to prep before busting in (and they believe that what is beyond the door is very nasty) then this can really eat up time. I've seen a group as a whole use around 16 spell or spell like effects and working out how all of these have changed all the characters can really take some significant time.

I make my own. I feel Gods are a big part of flavor of any given world. So for every world I make I always make new Gods that fit the world and have grown around the world.

As for how much work, well each god gets at lest a paragraph, domains, profolio and Favored weapon. Most get a history and church/worshiper work up as well. I often also work up some details on orders of each Gods or its church.

Pretty much my story as well.

I still don't get why people make MMO comparisons in a negative fashion towards 4e, considering the actual D&D MMO was made with the previous edition's ruleset. MMO comparisons are what helped make 4e make more sense to me, I don't see why it's always used in such a negative fashion.

Negative connotations or not I think Aardvark Barbarian is pointing at something with a certain amount of truth behind it. Fundamentally Lair Assault is the most 'board game/MMO' way of playing 4E. Lair Assault would seem to be directly derived from 4Core which in turn was an attempt to recreate the kind of lethal and competitive style of gaming one might find in a one shot or tournament of 1Es Tomb of Horrors.

In effect there is nothing wrong with likeing Lair Assault any more then there is something wrong with enjoying trying to survive the Tomb of Horrors. What does not follow however was the argument that some how Lair Assault was cool but a 4E campaign was some how an MMO. Though I suppose I can somewhat follow the idea if one contends that actually playing with miniatures turns the game into an MMO/Boardgame/Wargame or some such. Don't exactly agree but I can at least see the line of reasoning.

All that said I'm in the same camp as Aardvark Barbarian in that if you happen to like Lair Assault well that is cool and all but personally I think I'd rather just play descent. I mean the idea is interesting and has some merit but I'd personally much prefer to be playing in an actual 4E campaign - hopefully one with a compelling story and using a character that I have some investment in.

I want to try out 4th edition, myself. What's a good introductory adventure for a session or two of play just to get a feel for the rules? I got one of the boxed sets and Keep on the Shadowfell but both fell a little flat for me (Keep seems a bit long and the blue box "adventure" was just three combat encounters strung together and instructions to the green DM to write the rest themselves). So I'm looking for something in between the two.

If you or any of your players have access to the DDI then I'd take a look at City Race.

I thought my previous post was pretty clear. In it, I did NOT say that all the left wingers went to University while all the right wingers went to war.

I said that many left wingers avoided the draft by going to the University while many right wingers went to war.
I trust that repeating my comment here has helped to point out the distinction?

The fact is that during the Vietnam era we saw a huge shift towards left wing bs trying to pass itself off as "academics" in the Universities. This is the time when all the crap like "feminist studies", "African American studies", "critical thinking", etc. was born.

A just does not follow from B here. Whatever impact Vietnam had on American ideology it seems highly improbable that it was some how the cause for acadamia taking on a left leaning tone. Schools have been ground zero for ideologies that have shaken up the status quo for a very long time. Socrates was forced to commit suicide for 'corrupting the youth' for example and it was Chinese Students who started the events that took place in Tienanmen square in 1989.

In the west post secondary schools are usually generally left leaning and that includes schools in France, Britain Canada etc. all western countries that have Feminist Philosophy departments (especially France where Feminist Philosophy can arguably trace its roots) but none of which where directly involved in the American phase of the Vietnam War.

Fundamentally a model that Vietnam explains why post secondary schools tend to lean left simply fails because it can't explain why the very same phenomena is true in places in the western world that did not participate in the Vietnam War.

How long did you go on believing you where playing in a campaign that was not the current one? Whatever the answer is that is some seriously crossed wires.

I'd actually be concerned if this sort of thing (anything involving really unusual events surrounding your memory) crops up again without a serous lapse of time in between. Like go see a doctor concerned.

Inspired by the "Tesla vs TR Thread," I wondered what other Paizonians considered the top 10 US presidents. Again, I'm only asking for your opinions because MY list is the correct one; anyone who disagrees is just wrong.

1} Lincoln
2} Roosevelt, Franklin
3} Washington
4} Roosevelt, Theodore
5} Jefferson
6} Madison
7} Wilson
8} Monroe
9} Kennedy
0} McKinley

Madison? Really?

The guy was this close to having the United States break up under his watch. His miscalculations where phenomenal. As bad as Bush the Lesser was he was no where close to as bad as Madison. The political, domestic and foreign affairs blunders under Bush the Lesser never came close to being as seriously miscalculated as under Madison.

The Shaman wrote:

Pedantic wrote:

The Shaman wrote:

Pedantic wrote:

The biggest conclusion I drew is that spears are so unfairly shafted. :(

Yep. Even among simple weapons, the basic shortspear is about as good as a club, and the two-handed versions aren't exactly great either.

This calls for a movement for spear equality. If we're lucky, we might get a few tax-feats to allow effective spear wielders. :p

Well, there's the spear dancer feat, but it's imo more oriented towards martial polearms - such as a paladin of Shelyn with a glaive.. For now, I'm thinking of maybe making the shortspear and trident's critical modifier x3, maybe removing the trident range increment - it seems a bit too top-heavy to be throwable except as an improvised tactic.

Depends upon the Trident, some are designed to be thrown (I'd give those a +1 to hit if thrown). Perhaps not as far as a Jav, but more than a club.

Also, spears should just do more damage. IRL spears where the weapon of choice for militarys, swords were normally a secondary weapon (yes, even for Japanesse armies, and the Romans used a type of spear as a "opening" attack). In a different RPG (RuneQuest), spears were often the weapon of choice, and javelins were a nasty thrown weapon (did a D10).

I figure the fixation on swords comes out of the fact that most game designers (esp. the early ones) are readers of Swords and Sorcerey fiction, and most fantasy writers are not military (or weapon) historians. Swords are what officers/nobles use (kind of like pistols in a modern army), so that's what the Hero should use.

Here's another thought for you. Why are there so many kinds of swords in RPGs, but there are so few spears? There are A LOT of different spears... most of them just lumped into "short spear" and "long spear".

In large numbers a spear armed unit is pretty devastating presuming you can find relatively flat unbroken terrain but if your just wandering around with you and a couple of buddies and your likely to fight only a handful of enemies a sword in the hands of some one who knows how to use it is a superior weapon. In essence a wall of spear points is pretty hard to deal with but one guy with a spear is at a serious disadvantage.

Where are you? Is there a FLGs with Encounters sessions nearby? If you can go to those you can play a Dragonborn, albeit you'll be playing one using one of the Essentials classes. The idea is to meet people at the Encounters sessions and get into a real group.

Pull that off and you could likely use whatever they use to make a character. Often the DM of the group will have access to the DDI and you can show up an hour early to make your character. Sounds like your reasonably young and most DMs (that are any good anyway) would be willing to make suggestions and walk a new player through character creation.

Otherwise I think you need to narrow the question down a lot before anyone could help you. There are thousands of feats not listed in either of the two books you mention owning...I can't list them all.

Really though ideally you'd get access to the DDI yourself since that would give you all this information. You might also find the Virtual Table Top they have to be right down your alley.

Starting to look like you may want to take this to WotCs board. My suspicion is most of us here are very much old vets and we don't have the red box. Certainly true in my case.

I suspect the Red Box uses an Essentials Wizard (in which case I'd look it up and explain) but I don't know that for sure.

Diffan wrote:

I hear what DrGames is saying as I feel it appears it's harder to die in 4E than in other editions. 3 Failed saving throws seems like a lot, espically when you roll 10+ and your safe for another round. The whole idea that enemies don't hit you after your down is silly, since I feel Undead would keep crunching on you way after you've fallen to the floor and that's the way I do it.

Yep, and if you got to negative Bloodied HP then you're dead, no saving throws there (we almost had a death like that last night). I wonder whether some people missed this mechanism to determine death.

I do agree that it is harder to wear characters down over a few fights, especially if those fights span several days - and this is one of the things I don't like about 4e. Mind you, its also a reason I am not a big fan of PF RPG and clerical channelling, you can pretty much heal to full HP overnight if you're only doing 1 or 2 fights a day.

Seems like every time this comes up we get a slew of different perspectives on the issue. I suspect that a big part of the issue here is that death in 4E generally is different then in previous editions. If the three strikes to die rule is very much in force and the DM always stays away from downed characters then its pretty hard to die. If the DM makes a point of beating on downed characters (as my DM does) then its pretty easy to die.

There are other variations in there as well. Even something as simple as DMs using heavy hitters that like to beat on characters just after they get a surge can raise the lethality - a player that has just been healed from down is often vulnerable to a big hit that takes them straight past negative bloodied.

Other DMs may use monsters that tend to trap downed characters where the rest of the group can't reach them (and where giving them surges just results in them getting knocked down again) or even catch the party in ambush type encounters that often see the players cut their way out - leaving anyone unfortunate enough to be down behind.

Personally I run with a house rule that rolling very low on any death save automatically results in death but tend to leave downed characters alone. My main impetus for this is that it actually allows me to control lethality in the campaign statistically. Hence I've chosen 1-3 (or a 15% chance of outright dying each death save. It roughly translates into a character death every four levels or so on average.

In the main my point is that it does not really seem possible to say how lethal 4E globally, for every group, because there seem to be to many other factors influencing things however it does seem clear that for most groups once things settle in one can get a pretty good feel for how lethal that particular campaign is.

This has always been true in D&D but I think the fact that how characters now tend to die is causing people to conclude that the new reality they find at their table is something that can be broadly applied to all 4E tables simply because very few of us have experience at different tables with with different levels of lethality.

The classes are largely undifferentiated compared to AD&D and 2nd Ed. AD&D. The warlock fires bolts of necrotic energy out of his wand. The Ki master fires bolts of energy out of his orb. The fighter fires bolts of energy out of his sword, and all do about the same damage.

Maybe, sorta, at low levels. After that I just don't see this. Its not really possible to make a cleric that does the same damage as a ranger at 11th level and beyond. Its nearly flat out impossible baring some major cheese I've missed. Even if one goes the melee cleric route you just don't get access to powers that are comparable to some of the really phenomenal ranger powers like Shoot on the Run. Even at the lowest levels there is no way the cleric has access to a damage dealing at-will comparable to Twin Strike.

Its worth pointing out that this is comparing a striker class (Ranger) to a cleric trying to do as much melee damage as possible. If you go with a wisdom based cleric you get a much different picture since wisdom based clerics do pretty pitiful damage most of the time and then get access to some of the most powerful mid level daily's in the game - Dismissal in many ways is more powerful then any other power I have seen of comparable level, it does no damage at all but the target gets banished to an extra dimensional prison (save with penalties ends). Needless to say sending a Dragon to an extra dimensional prison - even for only a few rounds, so that the group can focus on killing its rider and lackeys is powerful in a way that even being able to dish out 110 hps in one round can't compare to.

Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:

Your looking at their process backward.

Your assuming that they made a monster builder and used that to make the monsters. They didn't and by and large they don't.

I'm not sure about that. Or rather - while they do tend to design more by art than formula, they do tend to stick relatively close to the numbers. You will certainly see defenses and other elements adjusted as appropriate, but they rarely stray too far from the proper hp totals.

In this case, I think Ylissa hit the relevant area - this level 17 enemy is a brute, who have more hp than most monsters. The numbers come out spot on for the original formula, as Ylissa shows above. Since Tiamat herself isn't in the CB (which I think they've said is less due to her breaking the rules, and more due to the complexity of her multiple heads), I can't easily check the numbers on that.

Now, as far as defenses go, there is often much more likelihood of them eyeballing it. Or, rather, I suspect they often start with the expected values, and then crank stuff up or down as appropriate (so the Tarrasque ends up with a Fort significantly higher than expected, but a low Reflex. Etc.)

It might well be the case that these days they are more likely to use the monster builder (though even here I think there is a lot more 'art' then formula with the core book monsters) but they certianly did not start out doing so as this question has come up before and my outline of the sequence of how they made the monsters is a paraphrase of what the designers have said when asked why the numbers are not usually identical to what one gets in the monster builder...essentially that the monster builder was created last.

Your looking at their process backward.

Your assuming that they made a monster builder and used that to make the monsters. They didn't and by and large they don't.

First they made base numbers - those base numbers are actually the character assumptions - i.e. that a striker of level X will do Y amount of damage and have +X chance to hit. Once they had these base numbers they created the monsters - which where/are meant to be challenging to a character with the above base numbers.

Finally when they had gone through those two steps they built a 'monster builder' that gives off rough approximations of the numbers they are using.

In essence you can't really make any (or at least not very many) of the monsters using the monster builder - because they never created them with the monster builder. Exceptions likely abound with freelancer material which likely was made, more or less, with the monster builder but that's not the monsters in the core books.

With things like Gods and Demonlords its very obvious that the monster builder itself is not the authoritative source because as one gets out to these extremes the monster builder itself no longer gives out numbers that are really all that perfectly in line with the base numbers. The small discrepancy between the base numbers in use in the actual game and the formula's used in the monster builder have now compounded over 30+ levels to become quite significant and noticeable differences.

In effect...they made it up.

My personal experience is that there is a sharper delineation between 2nd and 3rd edition when it comes to the kind of stories one can tell then there is between 3rd and 4th.

I can't think of a 3rd edition adventure that can't be converted to 4th. While there are certianly differences, some significant, both systems run on the d20 system. Its actually easier most of the time to convert PF material to 4th and vice versa then 3rd since both 4th and PF, when they made changes to 3rd tended to go in the same direction for the same reasons.

the difference between 1st and 2nd and 3rd and 4th actually strike me as much more profound when we get down to core elements - things beyond how classes are skinned and actually about how the game is played - the mind set the players (not their characters) bring to the game.

One example of an adventure that plays very differently between 2nd and 3rd is Tomb of Horrors. In 1st/2nd Tomb of Horrors is an adventure that pretty much challenges the players and not so much their characters. The modern editions of the game focus not so much on the players but on their characters. In effect getting through the Tomb of Horrors in the modern versions of the game is about using ones players skills (especially search) while getting through it in 1st/2nd is about the players not making a bad decision (sense poor choices tend to get one killed - no save).

Another example of an adventure that does not work in the modern versions of the game is Dragon Mountain. Originally published in 2nd this thing is chalk full of kobolds, literally hundreds of them and they have endless traps - its really friggen big to boot. Meant to provide a challenge for a 10th level party it works by draging the players deep into the kobolds mountain fortress where sheer attrition and constant unrelenting attacks will see the players drained of resources until they can eventually be dragged down.

In the modern versions of the game there has been a significant and fundamental shift in teh party's power level. While in 1st/2nd character of 10th level where not 10 times as strong as they where at first because the benefits gained at each level tended to not scale up particularly exceptionally. The result is even a crummy 1/2 hd kobold can - with enough of them and lots of home court advantage, be a challenge to a 10th level party. In 3rd and 4th this simply does not work any longer - character power is based on synergistic builds and with each passing level the players get more tools to create synergies with. The result is that they are actually far more potent at 10th then they where at 1st because their synergies are coming together. No number of kobolds will cause them to break a sweat - or if there is a number it may well be many thousands. A good example of where 3rd edition fell down in this regards is in the adventure Blackwall Keep where the Paizo staff warned DMs that due to sheer numbers the Lizard Folk would poise a severe danger - in reality as looking on the Age of Worms threads will show groups easily slaughtered the Lizard Folk with little or no challenge...simply put once the monster is three or more levels below the group hundreds of them can be slaughtered with relative ease.

you already asked this question and we already gave you our answers here.

Now I have no issue with continuing that conversation but no one wants to repeat the same things over and over. If you want to delve further into the issue I suggest that that thread is probably a better place to continue the discussion from as it already covers a significant amount on the topic.

I'm sure I'll hate to ask this but What's a monster builder?

I have a mental image of some sort of SPORE creature maker. You take the head of a kobold, put it on a tangler beetle body and add wings....

Program for statting up monsters.

While the 4E program is called the monster builder and it certianly can be used for that its almost more accurate to call it the monster modifier since this is what it is really exceptionally good at. List every monster in 4E that has appeared in any product including specific NPCs and such.

Generally I use it in a couple of ways. One is the most basic of basic - looking for a monster for my adventure and I scan through the options. Here I'll often know roughly what I want so I might do a search on Hobgoblin. This will bring up the stat block for every single hobgoblin that has ever been in an official 4E product. If I find what I'm looking for then I can get a copy of that stat block to import into my word processor with the push of a button.

If what is being looked for has not been found then its on to modification to suite ones needs. Generally here I'm look for a 'base' monster. A stat block that I'm going to modify to suite my needs. This is useful because you can raise or lower the level of aby monster in the game or change its base role (from say soldier to artillery) and the program will automatically adjust its stats to reflect its new level. You can also take any power that any other monster in the game has and swap that power into your creation - so if I want a hobgoblin that has the claws of a dragon then I swap in the dragons claw powers or if my hobgoblin is a hobgoblin medusa then I can steal medusa powers. Anything taken from some other monster automatically has its stats adjusted to be suitable for the level of the creature being created.

After that I'll look over the statblock and make adjustments (i.e. override) any stats that are not to my liking and replace them with whatever suits my needs.

One of the reasons 4E DMs tend to feel that prepping 4E is extremely fast rests on the monster builder as it usually takes only a couple of minutes to find and import a suitable monster to ones encounter and even creating the complex monsters or higher level NPCs generally takes less then 10 minutes. Even something like a high level unique and complex solo specifically made for ones campaign should take no more then 20 minutes to create and that presumes lots of pausing to think about what it is you want this monster to do.

Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:

What got me hung up on the conversion from 2nd to 3rd is that its really 3rd edition that we see a shift in the demographics that undrlie the system and the kinds of stories being told take a shift as well. In 1st edition the stories of worlds like Greyhawk are very human centric. History is about massive migrations, old empires, raiding barbarians etc. But 3rd edition is an edition where half vampires and teiflings are a dime a dozen. The very idea that the Fruztii Barbarians raid south into the Great Kingdom every year completely fade in importance...in fact almost don't make since in a world that so heavily emphasizes demographics full of half vampires. The stories one tells in such a system are not ones so much about holding off or participating in such an annual raiding event but more about the interactions of all these diverse peoples like Aasimar and half Angels.

I don't think the demographic shift was nearly as strong as you think it was. I don't think I ever encountered or used a half-vampire in all my years of playing 3.X. The core player races in 3.X are pretty much the same as in 2E.

So certainly you can make a world that has more tieflings and aasimar running around. But you can just as easily run the more human centric game using 3.X if you want. I guess I just don't see where the emphasis shift happened.

I could keep the demographics in 3rd in the same way as its possible to keep the demographics in 4th. Restrict the races allowed in play heavily and don't use material you don't create yourself. I was not willing to do that and if you where to pick up material for Greyhawk written by Paizo in the 3rd edition era it quickly becomes apparent that Paizo presumed such a demographic shift had taken place. The cities being described are chalk full of just such race and class combinations. The people of importance often are in the same boat and the stories being told are not ones about the effects of ancient migrations or the interactions between different ethnic groups.

In fact with the advent of 3rd edition we stop even seeing references to the ethnic background of the peoples in the modules. One does not know if their Flan or Baklunish or what and none of that even matters. The art itself completely ignores ethnicity making almost everyone some kind of generic fantasy white person. In Greyhawk unless your purebred Suloise your not lilly white (and purebreds are practically limited to the Scarlet Brotherhood).

So sure I can make the game support this but it does not come out of the box that way nor can I do so and easily use the material that was being published since that material does not care about ethnicity or the history entwined around ethnicity to the point where it actively ignores such material and, instead, emphasizes the kind of cosmopolitan race and class mixes that became the norm with 3rd and which continues in 4th though its toned down a little as there are no level adjustments in 4th so not as many different racial options and the draw to be half/X for ones character build is not as strong.

I understand what you mean. They had no problem helping players convert to third edition though.

My point is why SHOULD I try launching a new campaign. I already have one. It is more fun for me to start new characters in a world affected by the older ones whether they were active in AD&D or 4e. If I wanted to start a new campaign I would start it with another game in another world.

I actually think the advice "we encourage you to make NEW campaigns instead of continuing the old" was one of the bits that made some people skeptical.

The Point was to begin anew, but if I have a Dungeons and Dragons campaign then I should be able to convert it to the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons. I was willing to work with it a bit, then they released 4e Realms which said, NO REALLY we meant it start something new.

I get the point was to start something new. If I wanted to start a new campaign I would have bought another system, or just have run in a new campaign world. It was one objection I had to 4e. If SOMETHING could have fallen in place I could have worked with it. As it turned out, 4e turned out to be everything I did not want.

As an example, I had a STAR WARS campaign taking place inbetween Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars. It was originally d20. Saga came out, and with tweaking, there was no problem. 4e was a tsunami that came that carried the message, time to scrap the old and start NEW.

No thank you. I can make that decision for myself.

I have a long standing homebrew that goes back to 1st edition myself and whether or not it is difficult to convert must depend a great deal on the various elements within ones homebrew a I found the conversion from 2nd to 3rd very difficult and the conversion from 3rd to 4th very easy.

What got me hung up on the conversion from 2nd to 3rd is that its really 3rd edition that we see a shift in the demographics that undrlie the system and the kinds of stories being told take a shift as well. In 1st edition the stories of worlds like Greyhawk are very human centric. History is about massive migrations, old empires, raiding barbarians etc. But 3rd edition is an edition where half vampires and teiflings are a dime a dozen. The very idea that the Fruztii Barbarians raid south into the Great Kingdom every year completely fade in importance...in fact almost don't make since in a world that so heavily emphasizes demographics full of half vampires. The stories one tells in such a system are not ones so much about holding off or participating in such an annual raiding event but more about the interactions of all these diverse peoples like Aasimar and half Angels.

I found that quite difficult to implement but once I had done so then converting to 4E was a breeze because it, fundamentally, has the same underlying demographic and plot elements as 3rd edition and I had to do relatively little to update my 4E campaign world. Some difficulties in certain campaign specific classes mainly due to how hard it is to write ones own class in 4E but that was pretty much it.

I note that the 4E players that choose to play in Golorion don't seem to have much of an issue doing so nor did Eberron have any real trouble converting. None of this surprises me as these are really 3rd edition campaign worlds and at the most fundamental level of history and culture as well as the kinds of stories being told both 3rd and 4th are pretty much the same and I see both as a significant departure from 1st edition with its worlds that emphasized the same sorts of things that shaped our own history.

Liz Courts wrote:

We still have volumes of the Art of Dragon Magazine sitting in the warehouse.

I have that one. But to be honest, I didn't pay full price.

Maybe a digital compilation?

Digital compilation would actually work better for me since what I really want to do with the art is use it as a player hand out and its easier to print material from a digital source. Often looks better as well. I've found that some of the images I have scanned in the past have not always looked as good as I would have hoped and you always have to spend all this time trying to actually straighten them out for printing.

I doubt seriously that Monte was brought in to work on 4e all by itself. He is an innovator. WotC bringing him in at this time suggests to me that 5e is on the horizon, and a lot closer than people might think.

As for a 4e Unearthed Arcana....

That in itself could be the precursor to a major change in 4e.

But, deinol, as you say, right now, everything is all speculation.

While its possible he is laying groundwork for 5E or something else it almost can't be in anything more then a speculative stage. He is not in Seattle - he's half a continent away and presumably teleconferencing or some such a couple of times a week at best at the moment. Until he moves to Seattle it just does not seem possible he is all that much more then an adviser or freelancer.

Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:

I'm not familiar with the weapon but if you tell me what it does I'll happily translate it into 4E powerese or throw in a suggestion of what a power might look like.

here is my thought on it

Valnarin the Foeseeker
Longspear (not sure plus for 13th level)
powers I would like to see it have :
it would be a holy weapon; bane versus undead.
grant the weilder protection versus negitive energy (necrotic in 4e right?)
1/day may throw the spear which becomes a holy bolt of energy dealing X amount of damage.

thats what I thought about off the top of my head

Doing this as a rare (not an artifact). In 4E the difference is that a rare items are powerful magical items but once found they are yours forever while an artifact is pure story based - its meant to show up for X number of levels (5 is pretty reasonable) and then it leaves.

13th level would make the item +3 - here I might call it a 16th level item and make it +4 if you want it to be the players go to weapon for a significant portion of the game.

Bane versus undead is anything with that does radiant damage. You might also want to give it better criticals versus undead, so dd10's instead of d6s when a critical is scored against undead.

Protection versus necromancy is, yes necrotic, so it has a property of resist 10 necrotic.

Daily power that is a bolt for good damage.

Here is what I have...

Valnarin the Foreseeker
Level 16 +4 45,000 GP value Rare
Weapon: Spear
Enhancement Bonus: Attack rolls and damage rolls.
critical: +1d6 damage per plus, 1d10 damage per plus against undead creatures.
Properties
* Half the damage dealt by this weapon is radiant damage.
* Resist 10 Necrotic
* Undead creatures hit by Valnarin the Foreseeker take ongoing 5 radiant damage (save ends).
Power (radiant) * Daily (standard action)
Attack: ranged 10 +19 versus will
Hit: 5d6 radiant damage and is knocked prone and dazed (save ends), 5d10 against undead creatures.
Miss: If the attack misses the power is not expended.

Note that for a Rare I think this is just a tad under powered. Basically they usually get an encounter power as well.

I might go with the spear lashing out at those getting too close, originally I was thinking only undead but that makes it too weak so I added the ongoing radiant damage vs. undead property to make the weapon just that mucj better versus undead and left this with any enemy the player so desires. The reach makes this powerful partially compensating the player for using a spear - often not a particularly popular weapon.

Power * Encounter (Immediate Interrupt)
Trigger: An enemy enters a square within reach of the spear
Effect: Make a melee basic attack.