Monte Leaves, Playtesting Begins


4th Edition

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Liberty's Edge

zagnabbit wrote:
Hobby Store support is important. Game Stores are a labour of love, there's no money in it. Game Stores are where new Role Players are built.

Maybe in some places, but here in the UK this is not the case - at least from my experience.

One thing that annoys me about WotC organised play like Encounters is that it is only available in stores and the like which means I have pretty much zero opportunity to participate. With PFS I at least can participate at conventions and homeplay (never played PFS in a store).

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
DigitalMage wrote:
zagnabbit wrote:
Hobby Store support is important. Game Stores are a labour of love, there's no money in it. Game Stores are where new Role Players are built.

Maybe in some places, but here in the UK this is not the case - at least from my experience.

One thing that annoys me about WotC organised play like Encounters is that it is only available in stores and the like which means I have pretty much zero opportunity to participate. With PFS I at least can participate at conventions and homeplay (never played PFS in a store).

There's not much of a tradition of store play in Europe, and ever since foreign language editions of 4E were pretty much all catastrophes of varying proportions, WotC has pretty much written off non-US markets in terms of, well, anything.

Dark Archive

Diffan, I agree that it may be harder to maek a subpar character in 4e, but it's still relatively easy. You can go for pure flavor with a lot of your choices and end up with a character that's mechanically gimped. The fact is as long as you have a decent number of choices, as long as those choices are significantly different, then you are going to have system mastery as a required part of the game. Some choices or combinations of choices are going to strong for certain characters,a nd some are going to be weak for certain characters. For 5E, the gap between powergamers and casual gamers should be as narrow as they can make it without making the choices seem unimportant. I personally think that the huff about system mastery is overblown. Anyone that actually takes the time to know the rules should easily be able to figure out the really bad and good choices for their character. If they deliberately choose subpar choices, then they should be prepared to play a subpar character. If they can't fiogure such obvios things out, maybe D&D (and other complex RPG's) isn't for them.

The Exchange

Even in the "old days" a lot of English language-based RPGs - which were the dominant ones because of the impact of the US - weren't translated or not translated very quickly. I could be wrong in this, but I certainly recall other non-English-as-a-first-language posters here saying their rulebooks were in English.

But the issue of Encounters being only in game shops is separate to that. Personally, I can't really explain why they do it like that, but to be honest I imagine it is intended to draw people into them, which one would think would be a good thing for the hobby, on balance. Why not outside the US? Seriously, how many games shops are there outside the US? There's maybe three or four in London (excluding Games Workshop, who only sell their own stuff) - a city of ten million or so - and not that many more in the country at large - one or at most two in some of the larger cities. It would be expensive and probably inefficient in marketing terms trying to run something like that in the UK, and then you don't incur the cost of translation to try to run it in a non-English-speaking setting. If it was me, I'd probably make Encounters something DM could do at home with his group, but it isn't me.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Pathfinder is out and going strong in German, French and Italian currently (and there's the entire PRD translated into Japanese), so there's certainly market for that. It's more of a tradition thing - there was never a tradition of in-store RPG'ing around the Old World - I'm yet to see any RPG game night in my LGS's here in Poland (and I have three in a city of 600k people).

The Exchange

There's a very strong tradition of it at Games Workshop, ironically, though those are for Warhammer battles rather than roleplaying.


Diffan wrote:
...Basically a fighter in 4E works pretty independantly from a lot of his powers...

And a 3e/PFO Fighter works independantly from a lot of his feats/weapons/archetype.

Diffan wrote:
...But effectively, a Fighter's base mechanics allow him to do his job well to the capacity of what we assume Defenders will do. Not the feats he chooses, not the weapons, and not the powers...

Uhm, no, 1000x no. Powers are THE defining thing of 4e. There are a bunch of dirt weak powers out there and the difference between an optimized Fighter and a sub par Fighter is vast.

But the main thing is that a sub par Fighter in 3e/PFO can still shine in a group where combat is on the sidelines compared to RPing, but in 4e tactical combat with a battlemat is pretty much ingrained in the system so each and every weak choice will haunt you forever.

Shadow Lodge

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Bill Dunn wrote:
zagnabbit wrote:
Comparatively, AD&D isn't that well designed. It's really just a bunch of houserules with inconsistent math. It was fun but some of it just strains the mind.
I'd say that with all the stuff we've been through with 3e and 4e, I've come to the conclusion that AD&D was a lot better designed than a lot of people give it credit. It may have lots of varying subsystems, but the game still holds together really well.

I'd have to say that the biggest problems with pre-d20 editions of D&D weren't problems of game design, they were problems with organization and editing.

Scarab Sages

Kthulhu wrote:


I'd have to say that the biggest problems with pre-d20 editions of D&D weren't problems of game design, they were problems with organization and editing.

I agree, except to expand that "editing" in this case is beyond the typical prose-editing for most books, and is mostly game-editing - editing to clarify and codify rules.

Other changes aside, d20 (at least 3.0) was basically a gigantic editing job.

The Exchange

MicMan wrote:
Diffan wrote:
...Basically a fighter in 4E works pretty independantly from a lot of his powers...

And a 3e/PFO Fighter works independantly from a lot of his feats/weapons/archetype.

Diffan wrote:
...But effectively, a Fighter's base mechanics allow him to do his job well to the capacity of what we assume Defenders will do. Not the feats he chooses, not the weapons, and not the powers...

Uhm, no, 1000x no. Powers are THE defining thing of 4e. There are a bunch of dirt weak powers out there and the difference between an optimized Fighter and a sub par Fighter is vast.

But the main thing is that a sub par Fighter in 3e/PFO can still shine in a group where combat is on the sidelines compared to RPing, but in 4e tactical combat with a battlemat is pretty much ingrained in the system so each and every weak choice will haunt you forever.

Actually, Diffan's right. The "defending mechanic" for a fighter is independent of his powers - he marks anything he attacks irrespective of whether he hits it or what he hits it with, his blocking technique works (generally) off opportunity attacks which require melee basics. The powers in general simply define whether he is more defence- or damage-oriented, and they broadly balance. I don't agree that there are vast differences between powers and power levels. If his STR is high, he should be fairly effective. The fighter in 3e is the epitome of a weak character class with lots of potential pitfalls emerging from feat choice, whereas feats in 4e don't make a massive impact either way.

Scarab Sages

@Aubrey: A sorcerer is just as vulnerable. If you pick erase, identify and jump as your three sorcerer spells you are likely not going to have a successful adventuring career.

I think the perception is altered somewhat because most people who attempt a spellcaster already possess some degree of "mastery" whereas the fighter is seen as the beginner class.

Also, in terms of 3.X requirements, the feat tree is like saying to the spellcaster "you must learn burning hands, scorching ray, in order to learn fireball. It really limits a characters behaviour over the course of an adventure (or results in a character with a bunch of "1st-level" feats with no relation to one-another).

The Exchange

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Can't disagree with that. Spellcasters do require a fair degree of system mastery - I've played 3e D&D for years and wouldn't really suggest I have the nous to create a really good wizard. While I see what you are saying about the "spell tree" as a mechanical no-no, I can't help thinking that might be quite cool in some ways if they could get it to work...


houstonderek wrote:
One thing to remember: 3e brought a lot of people that had stopped playing D&D all together back into the hobby. A bunch of us skipped 2e because it was "D&D: Disney Edition" and seemed to sanitized after the grittiness of AD&D 1e.

Dude, you skipped 2nd Edition?! Really!? I'm sorry. So the edition where much of the coolest stuff was born...Planescape, Spelljammers, most of the Realms detail...you missed. All 11 years? Wow. Again...sorry.

I had a similar, albeit shorter stint of D&D vacation. Although I own 3.5, my gaming group and I left after we realized how broken 3.5 was. Luckily, 4E was a fantastic version, and I have personally ushered dozens of new players...many who never did an RPG before, into the game.

Lantern Lodge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

Personal matters:

Spoiler:
Jerry Wright 307 wrote:
It's more like the recent Dublin Dr. Pepper flap.

You have my UNDIVIDED ATTENTION.

Jerry Wright 307 wrote:
So Dr Pepper revoked the Dublin Plant's distribution license. They can't even sell it in their home town, now. The only place to get it is at the plant itself.

How did I miss this!?!? Dublin Dr. Pepper is one of the greatest substances ever concocted! I need to break out my angry pen and write the company!!!

Back to the thread:

memorax wrote:
Once again I'm not saying wotc was not blameless. Yet to place the entire blame of having too much 3.5 entirely on Wotc sorry but no. Unless Wotc sent ninjas which put either a gun to your head or took over your mind with psychic powers a store owner that buys to much stock of a certain product bears some of the responsability if a new edition comes along.

Judging from your comments on FLGSs, I'm guessing you don't really know WotC operates in that arena. Most of a FLGS's Wizards revenue comes from Magic: The Gathering. It's small, easy to stock, and it sells *very* well. One of the biggest moneymakers for the store is the weekly Magic program and the release and pre-release events. WotC supports these events with prizes (which drive up interest) and discounts on orders(for the store). To get these 'perks' one must be a 'ranked' store, by promising to keep a specific number of other Wizards products on the shelf (D&D, Board games, Miniatures when they were still around, etc.). More stock > more perks for players > more excitement > more purchases > more profit.

It was in the store's best interest to stock those books, before the announcement. To pretend like everything's fine and next week make that shiny shipment effectively obsolete is like selling Best Buy a billion HD-DVDs just before announcing that HD-DVD is conceding to Blu-Ray. Or selling a crate of ice to someone on a tropical island only for them to find that it has melted and evaporated in transit.

memorax wrote:
An experieced gamer imo does not require to know all the rules for an rpg. The beginner if he wants to make full use of the system does.

What you're talking about is system mastery. Because an experienced player can pick up an unrelated RPG, and, using his knowledge of other games, can recognize how seemingly unconnected rules will relate to each other, and the interconnected effect roleplay and roll-play have on a character. Because I played 2e, I have a general idea what to expect from a paladin in 3e. Because I played 3e, 4e's defense mechanics were easy to pick up.

Back to the original poster, Mr. Cook's departure is troubling to say the least, but I'm very excited to playtest the new edition!
(Although it will take a lot to pry my RPG money out of Paizo's grip... ^_^)


Aubrey the Malformed wrote:
MicMan wrote:
Diffan wrote:
...Basically a fighter in 4E works pretty independantly from a lot of his powers...

And a 3e/PFO Fighter works independantly from a lot of his feats/weapons/archetype.

Diffan wrote:
...But effectively, a Fighter's base mechanics allow him to do his job well to the capacity of what we assume Defenders will do. Not the feats he chooses, not the weapons, and not the powers...

Uhm, no, 1000x no. Powers are THE defining thing of 4e. There are a bunch of dirt weak powers out there and the difference between an optimized Fighter and a sub par Fighter is vast.

But the main thing is that a sub par Fighter in 3e/PFO can still shine in a group where combat is on the sidelines compared to RPing, but in 4e tactical combat with a battlemat is pretty much ingrained in the system so each and every weak choice will haunt you forever.

Actually, Diffan's right. The "defending mechanic" for a fighter is independent of his powers - he marks anything he attacks irrespective of whether he hits it or what he hits it with, his blocking technique works (generally) off opportunity attacks which require melee basics. The powers in general simply define whether he is more defence- or damage-oriented, and they broadly balance. I don't agree that there are vast differences between powers and power levels. If his STR is high, he should be fairly effective. The fighter in 3e is the epitome of a weak character class with lots of potential pitfalls emerging from feat choice, whereas feats in 4e don't make a massive impact either way.

Thanks, excatly what I had meant to get across but you said it much better. For an example, I had a shield-bashing Fighter that took the Shield Repost and Tide of Iron exploits. They were fun and allowed me to stay up-right and push people all over the battlefield. Using a Flail made it even more fun too. Compared that to my friend who played a Great Weapon (2-Hand) Fighter with Cleave and Reaping Strike. He did pretty decent damage yet was really no better of a Defender than I was because we used similar tactics like attacking the big, bad guy that seemed the most dangerous or positioning myself at choke points or at the edge of Wizad's zones to keep monsters rooted there. Out feats differed as my character used his shield a LOT and he took Multiclass Barbarian feat to become more "Berserk" (it was before Heroes of the Feywild supplement). The difference in how we played varied but we were both solid at defending because of the Fighter's basic class features (something v3.5/3E/PF Fighters don't have).

Scarab Sages

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:
Can't disagree with that. Spellcasters do require a fair degree of system mastery - I've played 3e D&D for years and wouldn't really suggest I have the nous to create a really good wizard. While I see what you are saying about the "spell tree" as a mechanical no-no, I can't help thinking that might be quite cool in some ways if they could get it to work...

I'm not really opposed to a "spell tree", I just think it's unfair when compared to the feats - the two don't really work together.

I tinkered with a houserule that linked all related spells in a chain. For a sorcerer or wizard, these spells were their "free spells" - anything else was research or scribing. At each spell level, you learned the relevant spell in the chain. Never playtested it though.

Liberty's Edge

theroc wrote:
houstonderek wrote:
One thing to remember: 3e brought a lot of people that had stopped playing D&D all together back into the hobby. A bunch of us skipped 2e because it was "D&D: Disney Edition" and seemed to sanitized after the grittiness of AD&D 1e.

Dude, you skipped 2nd Edition?! Really!? I'm sorry. So the edition where much of the coolest stuff was born...Planescape, Spelljammers, most of the Realms detail...you missed. All 11 years? Wow. Again...sorry.

I had a similar, albeit shorter stint of D&D vacation. Although I own 3.5, my gaming group and I left after we realized how broken 3.5 was. Luckily, 4E was a fantastic version, and I have personally ushered dozens of new players...many who never did an RPG before, into the game.

Oh, I picked up some of the peripherals here and there, I just skipped playing under 2e rules. I felt they sanitized the game too much with renaming demons and devils, eliminating half orcs and assassins, etc.

Basically, I felt 1e was a game for adults that kids got into, whereas 2e was written for kids and adults happened to play as well.

Some of the FR stuff was ok, as well as Planescape, but, really, most of the stuff they came out with for 2e was "meh". Cannot stand Ravenloft, Spelljammer, any of the pastiche settings, what they did to Greyhawk, etc.

Seriously, after Gygax left I really didn't care much for the direction the game went. I felt, at least for the first few years, that WotC really tried to bring the mojo back a bit, and it was enough to get me back into regular gaming.

As to your second point, glad you like 4e and could get some fresh meat into the game. Too bad the fresh meat didn't come close to replacing what they lost. And, trust me, 3x brought a ton of new players in as well (as did 2e, 1e, Basic, etc...), so, you know, wow, whatever. :-)

Silver Crusade

Everyone has their own way of doing things, the roc. :)


Dude, Ravenloft? Eh, to each their own. Ravenloft is my default setting when I DM. Fits me like a glove.


houstonderek,

I'm reading through this thread, but had to give you a shout-out for these links:

houstonderek wrote:

Part 1

Part 2

Much appreciated, and watching those two videos does give me quite a bit of forensic insight into Forgotten Realms 4ed.

Thanks for taking the time to post.

-- Andy
P.S. I also watched this video, which I'd seen before but still brought a smile to my face..

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Andrew Tuttle wrote:


-- Andy
P.S. I also watched this video, which I'd seen before but still brought a smile to my face..

Aaah the future, the bright light of progress and the shining beacon that was to unite us all. Funny how that turned out!


Gorbacz,

Gorbacz wrote:
Funny how that turned out!

I can smile now only because I've worked through the previous 4 steps of the Kübler-Ross model.

Whatever that actually was in that video (proof-of-concept? working model? mock-up?), it looked good in 2007 and still looks good in 2012. I'd pay for a product like that, as long as it worked and was offered by a company I trusted (or is recommended by others I trust).

I'm glad there are satisfied 4E folks playing games. I purchased the core 4E set and it just wasn't for me. I'm pretty leery of anything WotC's currently selling, based personal experience with them over the past few years.

I did get a copy of Essentials: Monster Vault Box Set. I needed a bunch of tokens, and a trusted entity (you!) gave this product a favorable review, so I purchased a copy and I'm completely satisfied. Thanks for that, by the way. :)

I'm sure there are tons of great folks who work very hard at WotC, and I hope the very best for 5E / DnDNext / however it finally ends up being branded.

I've got Pathfinder (supported by a fantastic company of folks I respect and trust and a robust community of interest), so I'll be fine whatever happens.

Regards,

-- Andy


Andrew Tuttle wrote:


-- Andy
P.S. I also watched this video, which I'd seen before but still brought a smile to my face..

I'd never seen that, thanks. I can see how people were disappointed when it wasn't delivered on release. That was a sad story.

Dark Archive

In 4e unless you really try to wimp your character out the difference between a char_op character and a standard one is 20, 30% effectiveness.

We're assuming ya know, you're going into your requisite score. Taking a weapon worth a damn...sort of easy things to see from the get-go.

As the haunting thing...it'd haunt me a lot more except 4e has it built in so you can retrain something every level.

I loved essentials too, really streamlined characters if I don't feel like monkeying for hours I can make one. If I have a newbie to 4e they can pick it up. I thought it was great how they allowed for this, however I am somewhat disappointed that it's become the standard (I know Shadow and perhaps Elemental were written with an Essentials mindset).

System master is heavily built into 3e, Monte's baby an all. I don't recall hearing it as a design goal for 4e. I'm not that much into the concept myself and I seem to do ok playing 4e.

Aubrey the Malformed wrote:
MicMan wrote:
Diffan wrote:
...Basically a fighter in 4E works pretty independantly from a lot of his powers...

And a 3e/PFO Fighter works independantly from a lot of his feats/weapons/archetype.

Diffan wrote:
...But effectively, a Fighter's base mechanics allow him to do his job well to the capacity of what we assume Defenders will do. Not the feats he chooses, not the weapons, and not the powers...

Uhm, no, 1000x no. Powers are THE defining thing of 4e. There are a bunch of dirt weak powers out there and the difference between an optimized Fighter and a sub par Fighter is vast.

But the main thing is that a sub par Fighter in 3e/PFO can still shine in a group where combat is on the sidelines compared to RPing, but in 4e tactical combat with a battlemat is pretty much ingrained in the system so each and every weak choice will haunt you forever.

Actually, Diffan's right. The "defending mechanic" for a fighter is independent of his powers - he marks anything he attacks irrespective of whether he hits it or what he hits it with, his blocking technique works (generally) off opportunity attacks which require melee basics. The powers in general simply define whether he is more defence- or damage-oriented, and they broadly balance. I don't agree that there are vast differences between powers and power levels. If his STR is high, he should be fairly effective. The fighter in 3e is the epitome of a weak character class with lots of potential pitfalls emerging from feat choice, whereas feats in 4e don't make a massive impact either way.


Aarontendo wrote:

In 4e unless you really try to wimp your character out the difference between a char_op character and a standard one is 20, 30% effectiveness.

We're assuming ya know, you're going into your requisite score. Taking a weapon worth a damn...sort of easy things to see from the get-go.

As the haunting thing...it'd haunt me a lot more except 4e has it built in so you can retrain something every level.

I loved essentials too, really streamlined characters if I don't feel like monkeying for hours I can make one. If I have a newbie to 4e they can pick it up. I thought it was great how they allowed for this, however I am somewhat disappointed that it's become the standard (I know Shadow and perhaps Elemental were written with an Essentials mindset).

System master is heavily built into 3e, Monte's baby an all. I don't recall hearing it as a design goal for 4e. I'm not that much into the concept myself and I seem to do ok playing 4e.

Yep, my thoughts exactly. I think I'm often the only one in our group that uses the Char_Ops boards, but it's only when I'm running a class I've NEVER played before and to see what other options I have aside from the publication the class came from. There are so many aspects in Dragon and other sources that it's hard to track them all down. With the rating system, I can plainly see why one power might be used over another and which powers are great or horrible. And when it comes to 4E, the differences aren't SO huge that taking a Red or Purple (generally considered poor choices) colored power will completely ruin your character or make you die in your first encounter. And by that same token, not all Blue and Sky Blue (generally considered great choices) aren't always the best options ALL the time. If a paladin takes an encounter power that targets a close burst 1, well that'll do nothing fancy against a solo enemy, espically if that power gets better the more enemies are around.

Silver Crusade

i wish there was something better other than DDI for D&D. :(

Dark Archive

GM Elton wrote:

i wish there was something better other than DDI for D&D. :(

Eh it bothers the hell outta me that we're expected to keep paying for it when 4e isn't supported anymore. Why can't they just sell a nice little offline for us to use? Say $50 with everything built in? ;p


memorax wrote:
Well in this blog many years ago he posted comments not exactly helping Wotc or 3.5 with his comments. Some I actually agree with most I do not. The link: montecook.com .

I find it very interesting how well his points on small, subtle changes apply to pathfinder.

Liberty's Edge

Aarontendo wrote:
Eh it bothers the hell outta me that we're expected to keep paying for it when 4e isn't supported anymore.

4e is still supported, aside from the material in the Dungeon and Dragon magazines (i.e. DDI is support) there are still 4e products being released: The Dungeon Survival Handbook is released this month and Menzoberranzan is due out in August.

Aarontendo wrote:
Why can't they just sell a nice little offline for us to use? Say $50 with everything built in? ;p

This would indeed be good, I still have the offline tools but stopped updating the character builder so I wouldn't get the updated Magic Missile. Also its on my old PC that is nearly dead and I would need to look into trying to extract all the files I need to transfer it onto a new PC. SO yeah, this would be good.

Liberty's Edge

Malaclypse wrote:
memorax wrote:
montecook.com .
I find it very interesting how well his points on small, subtle changes apply to pathfinder.

God, yes. Seriously you could substitute Pathfinder for 3.5 and 3.5 for 3.0 and most of it would make sense.

Luckily I only bought into D&D with v3.5 so never had the pain of moving from 3.0 to 3.5, but its for exactly the reasons Monte talks about that I have not converted to PF from 3.5 (though I did bite the bullet and for PFS).

"The problem is that there are just enough changes that a player has to question everything. Even if fireball didn't really change, after you've had to re-learn how wall of force, flame arrow, and polymorph work, how can you be sure? Welcome to the game sessions where you've got to look everything up again."

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