crosswiredmind's page

If D&D goes through the same drop in the player base that DDM went through then WotC should pull the plug. If the product line isn't profitable then it should be dropped.

The CCG argument breaks down when you consider how easy it will be to just transcribe or copy the card. It's not like Magic where you need the real card to play in any sanctioned event. The new powers will spread to plenty of people that never buy the minis or subscribe to DDI.

crosswiredmind wrote:

I think you misunderstood. There is a difference between a price increase to match a cost increase and maintain a margin, and a price increase to increase a margin because of flagging sales...

You're right, I did misunderstand. Sorry :)

crosswiredmind wrote:

The price increase is not necessarily to save the line...

Of course it is. They wouldn't be doing it otherwise. In fact, you went on to offer an explanation why such a move was necessary to help save the product line.

WotC was being accused of the latter when I believe it is actually the former.

The line is clearly in trouble - I don't think the announcement can be taken any other way. This may save it, but I don't think so - huge price increases rarely save anything.

I was excited at the news that they were going to have non-random minis.... but now I realize it is going to suck. So if the visible mini is a good one that you want/need then you'll have little luck getting them if their good since they'll get snatched. The less for more clause just sucks, and to be honest $11 for 3 pc minis just kinda sucks, so they had better be really good to get me to buy them. Heck it's $66 just for 1 of each pc mini if you wanted em all...

That's just the way it is.

Why does WotC insist on further whittling away its customer base?

They have done what many folks have claimed they do not do - they listened. This is a very positive change indeed.

Yep. One year sub. The articles rock and I love the landscaped PDFs. Very very screen readable.

YAY! PCs separate from critters! YAY! You get to see the heros! YAY! As a GM I will buy my critters without all of those pesky PCs clogging my mini bin.

This is really good news.

I will pretend to know the roleplaying industry.

We're very happy with our decision.

I haven't heard of any 4e third-party products selling in significant numbers, and Pathfinder's numbers have been significant since the beginning.

Again, we are confident we made the right decision for ourselves and for our customers.

As for the current batch of 4e third party products - they are definitely lacking. If Paizo had been there from the word go then your stuff would have sold well but frankly you did the right thing.

In the long term, with a flexible license, you guys could be the top publisher for both OGL and 4e compatible products.

I hope that comes to pass someday.

crosswiredmind wrote:

If past experience is a decent predictor of future trends the OGL audience will shrink over time.

BTW - I would have voted for 4e but I can't login, and when I do login the forums do not recognize that I am logged in.

Entirely possible that the OGL/3E audience will shrink. At the moment, though, it is larger than the 4E audience, at least for patron adventures.

Oh, and I think the login issue has now been fixed. Go vote!

Yep - the 3e audience will gravitate towards the small scale, high quality third party publishers. I believe it will stay strong for a while but only time will tell if it is truly sustainable.

crosswiredmind wrote:

David Fryer wrote:

That is the type of thing that is driving the casual fan like me away from WoTC and towards publishers like Paizo.

You may not be as much of a "casual fan" as you may think.
If you own more than a few Paizo products you are likely more than just a casual fan.

By a casual fan, I mean that I don't spend a lot of time of messageboards, debating the ends and outs of this system or that system. I sit down and play a few hours a week, but that is about it. The only board I spend any real time on is the Paizo board and even that is mostly spent in the Off Topic section.

Counterpoint:

My FLGS cannot keep enough 4e in stock. He burns through them every week.

That is the type of thing that is driving the casual fan like me away from WoTC and towards publishers like Paizo.

If you own more than a few Paizo products you are likely more than just a casual fan.

And frankly I'm amazed by the relatively light support for 4e in the votes.

Then there are the vast majority of folks at the shop that now play 4e. They do not follow the forums or dig deep into the 3rd party publisher scene. They buy from WotC and may pick up a few third party products but not with any regularity. The third party 4e products are not a big attraction for them. Just like when 3.5 was the current edition - they were not buying third party products back then.

It seems that third party publishing is its own market with a distinct sub-set of the overall D&D player base. That subset is more likely to stick with 3.5 than move to 4e because of the OGL. That is the part they like most - open gaming products.

I have no doubt that third party products for 4e will do well because of the size of the player base and the gaps in WotCs product line. But the vocal supporters of the third party publishing scene are those that have no desire to play 4e. So either way I think a third party publisher can stay in business by supporting either edition.

The big question is this - will OGL gaming still be big enough to support a third party publisher three, five, and ten years down the road?

If past experience is a decent predictor of future trends the OGL audience will shrink over time.

BTW - I would have voted for 4e but I can't login, and when I do login the forums do not recognize that I am logged in.

So far my favorite feature has been how little I open the books to look up rules these days. It took a month or two to get the rules down, but now that we've got the hang of it, particularly with the DM screen, the encounters just fly by, with the rules intruding as little as possible. I think it's great.

I don't think I have referred to the rules during the last four or five sessions I have run. Between the character sheets, the stat blocks, and the GM screen I have everything I need.

crosswiredmind wrote:

Actually - why not just give the wizard slots for all of the powers. Let the wizard prep the at-will, encounter, and daily slots at the start of each day?

I'm intrigued. Can you be a little bit more specific, how would you run the mechanic?

For example ... a 10th level wizard gets 2 at-will, 3 encounter, 3 daily, and 3 utility. The spell book could have capacity for 4 daily, 6 encounter, 6 daily, and 6 utility spells. At the start of every day the slots for the powers are filled from the book.

Actually - why not just give the wizard slots for all of the powers. Let the wizard prep the at-will, encounter, and daily slots at the start of each day?

Ok, this may have come up before but why doesn't the mage get the option to memorize different Encounter Powers between encounter.

The pro is flexibility - the con is that it is one more thing to track.

Nondetection effects, which are apparently standard issue for villains.

Think less Joan of Arc, more a policer officer trusted by the state with a gun. Does the gun stop working because the police officer is doing bad things? No, but if the agency catches wind of it the officer is going to have a hard time keeping his gun.

my experience to this day was more:
I must have thought of a dozen different characters of different races and classes all of which just scream
"WE ARE BASICALLY THE SAME, DOING X DAMAGE AND EFFECT NUMBER Y OR Z !"

Its really up to the DM to choose.

Create a line of rogue exploits that don't have the weapon requirements of other powers. Create a feat that allows sneak attack with specific weapons, a feat that allows the sneak attack with a penalty to attack or damage, or a feat that adds a weapon group to the list of weapons you can use rogue exploits with.

Something between "suck it up" and "just remove the restriction" that is more helpful than telling them to find a new game to play. Something that one could imagine appearing in some later WotC supplement.

If I said I am sad that I don't have the Battle Dancer class in 4e, and that I would like to see it, I don't think that a logical response should be, "either house rule the name of rogue to battle dancer or stop playing 4e."

crosswiredmind wrote:

WotC's Nightmare wrote:

I get it. I just don't agree with it.

So house rule it and move on - or just don't play 4e. Which ever works for you.

So those are the only two options?

No, but it does help, and DM's need all the help they can get. It really adds to the game to have creatures grounded in the "reality" of the game and be organic parts of the world instead of convenient exp packages for wandering adventurers.

Only the players can do that. It's up to them to breathe life into thier characters. It's a bit more difficult for the DM to do that because he has to run multiple "characters", and they will probably be around for only one encounter. The DM really needs help to make combats evocative and memorable,and 4E seems to fall short in this area. I really feel that monsters have lost a lot of their flavor and appeal in 4.0. There were a lot of monsters I would look at in 3.x and think how interesting or cool they were especially with the ecology and other fluff info provided for them. 4E monsters just seem like numbers on a page. There really doesn't even seem like a need to give them names. You might as well call them a level x soldier, skirmisher, etc. In short, the best description I have for 4E monsters is boring. I haven't seen a single monster write-up in 4E that has been the least bit inspiring. Some of them may have interesting mechanics, but that doesn't make up for their lack of personality.

Look, each critter in the 4e MM has a section of lore, a description, an illustration, encounter groups, and powers (which in and to themselves are often quite evocative).

If a DM cannot take that information and turn a fight into a memorable encounter then he or she must truly lack imagination.

Nope. If it had been here on the east coast I would have considered it but the move to the midwest killed it for me.

I get it. I just don't agree with it.

we'll wizards couldn't please everyone with their quick and easy monsters, and minimum game prep time, and emphasis on gaming rather than some kind of naturalism.

Too bad you that guy , eh? I think the rest of us are having a blast OP

Logos
~hey im going to prep my game in the 15 mins before it tomorrow and actually get everything done as well as i would have in like 2 hours of 3.x yay me

I tried to get a group together to run Pathfinder on the alternate weeks from my WFRP game. I could not find anyone interested in PFRPG. I now run 4e on alternate weeks. The main reason I was given - the classes in Pathfinder are too elaborate. The barbarian and the sorcerer in particular were truly vexing to some of my players. WFRP is our main event and 4e is our escapist game night. The more folks at our FLGS play 4e the more they like it. Heck - we used to run 6 tables of Living Greyhawk every month and now we can't muster a single table and Living Forgotten Realms is getting 12 tables a month and we are turning people away.

ghettowedge wrote:

It's a lot easier than in 3.x where I spent 3 hours the other night statting out a 10th level kobold druid. In 4e I could've just picked a few things I wanted it to be able to do and measured him up against the DM's chart. I wouldn't have had to pick dozens of spells, buy magic items, stat out his wild shapes, stat his animal companion, pick skills and feats....

I suppose this comes down to a matter of DMing taste then? That was really something I enjoyed. As for the choice of kobolds, I was running the first official adventure. That might be a cause of my dissatisfaction. As others have said in this thread, it is not of the highest quality and its encounters may have contributed to my feelings of using robots.

Shuriken and the hand crossbow do not have the off-hand property so you can't really have a longsword at the ready while using either of those weapons.

The rogue class, as well as every core class should be designed to portray an archetype, but should be broad enough for a reasonable amount of customization. 4E makes characters conform to a tightly defined, constraining class.

Just think of the classes as fighting styles:

finesse fighter = rogue
archer = ranger
two handed hacker = fighter
sword and board = fighter

Now add on skill selection, multiclassing, and feat selection and you can turn each one of them into a myriad of character concepts. Add in human versatility and the diversity of character concepts expands dramatically with the extra feat and extra skill.

Character class does not have to be the same as archetype or stereotype.

Using modules is one approach, but if you want to strike out on your own then 4.0 is a bear to run.

It is less fun, because it feels to me like there is less creativity and interpretation by the GM.

I can't see any objective restriction to GM creativity in 4e that were not already a part of the game.

I'm finding it to be more work than 3e to prep. At least with 3rd edition there were good adventures from Paizo. I just can't get into the published 4e adventures or the ones in DDI Dungeon. I try to read through them and get excited, but I can't.

That being said the prep time I was referring to was the time it takes me to go over the encounters, understand the critters, and set up the flow of gameplay.

This is my rant about 4th edition. I have to DM again this week and I'm not looking forward to it. I'm going to need a break from D&D for a few months once I can finally end this campaign.

Once I got a good grasp of the game it ran so smoothly and required so little prep that I can never go back to GM 3e.

Yeah, a rogue could use weapons besides light blades, slings, etc. if he wants to do nothing but use basic attacks with no extra sneak attack damage, thereby gimping himself into utter uselessness. There are practically no rogue powers (maybe completely none) that let you use "non-rogue" weapons. This is far from a viable concept. It is pigeonholeing in the extreme, and should be done away with.

Character classes in 4e are thematic. This is not 3.5 where characters are built by selecting level combinations from numerous classes until you mix them in some optimized form or another.

If you want to be a martial archer in 4e you need to be a ranger. If you want to be a longsword wielding con artist you need to be a fighter with the bluff skill.

For better or worse class customization is more limited in 4e than it was in 3e.

A great axe is a little extreme, but why shouldn't a Rogue be able to sneak attack with a long sword or a maul? They're one handed weapons that aren't that difficult to wield.

Except, you still can't sneak attack with the longsword or use any rogue powers with the longsword, which is very annoying and unsatisfying.

One interesting side effect of the push/pull/slide thing - persistent area effects cast by the party's wizard can easily become a weapon to be used against the party.

Wizards need to be very very careful with spell placement. Not sure if this makes them less useful but it can definitely be a very big drawback.

You aren't going to get any decent 4E adventures until more 3rd party publishers make those adventures. WotC does not do adventures well. The only good ones they produced in 3.5 were written either completely or partially by freelancers, many of which were used by Paizo on a regular basis.

I have not found much to like from WotC mods for some time but that does not mean that they can't publish good ones.

Hey - Paizo. I think we need some new smurf avatars. Ya know to smurf up the place a bit.

smurf ... smurf indeed

Thank you for your reasoned and diplomatic approach Donny. Your understanding and willingness to see all sides of the picture is exactly the sort of oil we need to calm these troubled waters.

Seriously - I know emotions are still running high so can we just chill for a while please?

I think it is the flavor that irks me the most. I can understand the need for balance, but none of the arch-typical rogues I like to envision rely so heavily on the dagger. I felt like I was playing a pre-generated character.

Playing a con-man made me pretty much useless in the campaign since I was not filling my appropriate role of trap-finder/disarmer and was a real drag on the rest of the party.

For a bow, I'd say use a crossbow, and just describe it as a normal bow. It takes a minor action to load - which you can just attribute to the extra time required to aim and fire for a character based around precision based damage.

Multiclassing. I love the thematic nature of each class and the new multiclassing allows for the flavor of two classes to be mixed without losing the overarching theme of the primary class. Between multiclassing, the nature of feats, and the differing builds within each class a PC can build up a good mix of abilities without straying too far from the core class theme and role.

Well, that is the trade off. Using up feats to fill the gaps may seem like a big deal but feats are not what they used to be. Spending one to gain proficiency with a longsword won't hurt that much in the long run.