Crodocile's page

The Hellknight PrC from Pathfinder 27 is legal to play. The same article introduces the religion of the Godclaw. Can a cleric in Pathfinder Society worship the Godclaw? If not, since the Godclaw is a pantheon of lawful deities, could you play a cleric hellknight that reveres the pantheon as a whole, but specifically worships one of the five as her official deity?

Thanks!

That said, the title of this thread made me laugh. It's like an invitation to a support group..."large staff envy anonymous".

I keep getting e-mails about natural remedies for that affliction.

That seems fair to me. In 3rd edition small characters got a bunch of bonuses to balance out their penalties to strength and damage, but in 4e they get limited weapon options with no bonus or benefit to balance it out.

A friend of mine is converting his 3.5 game to a 4e game, and of course my character is a gnome bard. I figure the closest class for the character is wizard, but I ran into a potential problem. I wanted to use the Staff of Defense mastery for the constant +1 to AC, but staff implements are often described as special or magical quarterstaves. Quarterstaves are two-handed weapons, so small characters can't use them. I haven't seen anywhere that it says specifically that small characters can't use staff implements, but it doesn't seem legal. Any ideas?

Warlocks are more effective while they're holding their rod? I definately don't want to get hit with that eldritch blast.

I thought they might be a coincidence in the writing of the adventures, but now that they're both there in the world it'd be fun to do something to tie them together.

I'm running AoW right now and combining it with EthRoG. We're at the start of Hall of Harsh Reflections and halfway through the Tower of War chapter of EthRoG. I noticed an overlap in the two campaigns (well, another one), in the chapter on the Tower of Magic in EthRoG; at the bottom of the tower is a black obelisk charged with magical energy that Zagyg used to ascend to godhood. Of course Kyuss also used a black obelisk charged with magical energy to ascend to godhood. So that could mean one of three things-

1. They're one and the same object. As written, they're not, because Kyuss' has been in the Spire of Long Shadows until recently. I could change it in my campaign so that it is the same, but then I'd have to rewrite some stuff later on. I kinda like this idea as it would combine the two storylines (the only major connection that I have planned so far is Raknian, and Tirra sort of). Either the obelisk would be introduced earlier while the PC's are still in the Free City, or the PC's would have to come back to Castle Greyhawk later. Since the party will have more xp than normal for AoW because they will have done EthRoG, I could introduce the obelisk (missing or being stolen) just after Champion's Belt and EthRoG are almost done, and then skip a all or most of Spire of Long Shadows. Maybe Edgar Tolstoff (from Elder Evils) could be the one to take it as I've introduced him too, and haven't figured out when he'll come back yet. Of course, SoLS would still work; it would just mean that Zagyg took the obelisk, not Dragotha, and much earlier.

2. There are multiple black obelisks around the world. The benefit of this conclusion is that after AoW is over; there's the potential storyline of the now epic level characters finding one, gaining control of it, figuring out how it works, and potentially ascending to godhood themselves. Which could be a really cool and truly epic conclusion to the campaign. With this storyline, I'd want the PC's to encounter Zagyg's obelisk at some point so there's the throughline in the campaign, because it's cool.

3. They are completely different and coincidental. This conclusion is neither cool nor fun, so I'm against it.

Anybody have any ideas or suggestions? Sorry if this double-posts, but it doesn't look like it worked the first time.

I used this device in a campaign once. An elven conjurer summoned the PC's to help him defend his keep from invading frost giants. They were summoned at a few key fights in the war, so they could participate in all of the important points. The war ended up being connected to the plot the PC's were working on back in their side of the world- the frost giants were controlled by illithids who were trying to sew chaos and strife all over the surface world.

The reason the elf wizard was able to summon the PC's was that he was the grandfather of the orphan half-elf PC who never knew anything about her elven heritage. Later they met up naturally and she learned about her family and all. Also the PC's (most of whom were annoyed by the elf's actions) were awarded with magical items for their heroics in defence of the elven lands, which made them less annoyed.

I ran the wormy Tolstoff chapter from Exemplars of Evil last week. I put it in between Blackwall Keep and Hall of Harsh Reflections. It went really well. It's a cool mini-adventure with cool characters. There was a lot more roleplaying potential to Irina than I took advantage of, but I didn't know I was going to use the book until it was too late to put her in previous adventures. I haven't figured out when I'll bring back Edwin yet, maybe Tomb of Horrors like Elder Evils suggests. Edwin was pretty cool, none of the 7th level party (plus Allustan) could touch him. They knew it was time to flee when the party cleric was very nearly disintegrated (I didn't pull that on them for a few rounds, first he animated the dead into zombies). I added some encounters to the outside of the castle- ghouls+ghast and gravehounds (MiniHB); which fit the feel of the place well but weren't powerful enough to challenge the party.

PS- Draen the wererat whispergnome killed the party evoker with a full attack from hiding, but I probably won't add it to the AoW obituaries as it didn't really happen in the AP. Plus Edwin wormed-to-death the owlbear (from Whispering Cairn) who'd become a party member's companion.

Or the egg hatches in the other realms and the mount can't get away from the worms because the egg is strapped to him. Then, when summoned, Mr. Horsey comes back as a large barded Spawn of Kyuss. Mua ha ha ha!

I guess I'm vindictive too. I just love players' actions coming back to bite them in the ass.

At first I was worried about class balance too. Especially because the wizard got upgraded and the sorceror didn't, when it was already the more powerful class. But at the back of the pdf they say that they'll upgrade the rest of the core classes in an update soon. I don't think they can do the non-core classes though if they aren't in the srd.

I just want to say that I love the changes to the halfelf and halforc. Before they were subpar choices, ruleswise. Now they're definitely viable. The halfelf's adaptability is huge, but not unbalancing; and plus 2 to any stat is amazing as well. The halforc's ability scores are now balanced with everyone else's and they're fluffy, plus the weapon proficiencies and ferocity make for a very appealing character. A halforc cleric or druid would just rock.

I'm okay with the elven beauty ability because it says right in the rules that the DM can make it not work in any encounter he doesn't think it should. That fixes both balance issues and fluff issues in one fell swoop. Sure the bartender will give you a free drink, but the dwarf king isn't so shallow.

I'm also in the max HP + Con mod camp. I like first level to be dangerous. PC's get powerful soon enough, it's nice to have a point when they're almost regular people. It gives a sense of accomplishment when you can remember back to when a goblin with a spear could have dropped you with one good hit. Also the 0 to -10 buffer zone helps with PC's not dying in droves.

But I think the other options are good ones, and think they should stick around as optional rules. I may not use them in my campaigns, but I'm sure a lot of other people would.

P.S.- I love the new class HD! Rogues should be a little tougher as they're front line combatants, and wizards aren't completely feeble now.

Craft- Knots.

I think Rope Use is too specific too. Making it part of climbing and/or survival seems best to me.

Or maybe just ditch the favored class and multiclassing xp penalty concepts entirely...

I agree! I've gotten rid of them in my game. IMHO, the xp penalty for multiclassing just limits creative character building. Also, humans are good enough as is with the bonus feat and skill points.

edit- D'oh! Didn't read Jason's post. Nevermind. Keep up the good work!

RADNESS!!!

This is way better than anything I was expecting. I wish it loads of success. And I'm really disappointed that I have to go to work in a few minutes and can't read the new rules. Thanks!

Paizo's big problem is that they don't censor their fans? They have the perverse lack of taste to allow people to voice both positive and negative opinions about a subject? Wow, then you definitely shouldn't buy any of their products- even if it's for a different game than the one discussed on the offending part of the board, and even if they didn't make any of the offending comments themselves. The nerve of them to give people the freedom to speak their mind. From what I hear, people aren't allowed to say mean things about 4th edition on ENworld and WotC's website, so maybe you'll be more comfortable with...I'm having a hard time thinking of a nice word for fascists. Oh well.

On a small side note...

Does anyone else think that it is absolutely insane to put a creature with ability DRAIN in this module? At 3rd & 4th level, you have zero means of dealing with ability drain. ZERO!!! And CR 3?

I played it fast and loose with that one, making it only wisdom Damage, and letting the party face the allip alone, rather than with a pair of wizards aiding it. As it was, they nearly all lost to the allip anyway when 2 of 6 people succeeded on their saving throw to the babble.

When we got to the Allip, the party wizard had just lost 4 of his 8 points of wisdom because he looked at the green markings on the wall and failed his will save (I rolled max damage too). Then the Allip got a surprise round on the party, I rolled for who it would attack, and of course it was the wizard. At least he had a pretty good touch AC from mage armor, but that doesn't help when I roll a natural 20, with another natural 20 to confirm the crit. There was some discussion in the group if you actually could do double ability drain damage on a crit, but it didn't really matter because again I rolled max damage on the first die and dropped him to 0 wisdom. So he was effectively out of the adventure, but luckily not technically dead (just crazy and unconscious). So yeah, that encounter was pretty devastating in my game, but that was partly due to a string of several rolls going the wrong way (plus wisdom was the characters dump stat). One thing that I think does make the encounter more reasonable is that it comes at very near the end of the adventure, so if the characters survive the fight with some wisdom drain, they don't have much farther to go before they can go back to town and get an NPC cleric to cure them; if it had come in the Hextor temple instead that could have been really debilitating.

Edit- Oh yeah, and the wizards didn't help the Allip in the combat. The party made lot of noise in the room outside the Allip's room (the one with the green markings on the pillars and the bulges in the wall), so the wizards cast their buffing spells and went to warn the Faceless One while the Allip phased through the wall to get the PC's. That would have been a much harder otherwise, especially since the character who was best able to take out an incorporeal foe had just been dropped before he could do anything to it.

I was also worried about having both Tenser and Mordenkainen in my AoW/EtRCG campaign. Eligos taking Mordenkainen's place is a good idea. I'll have to look at the adventures again and see how that would play out. It would definitely be nice to have more common elements to the adventures.

Are people still arguing that 4th edition is not becoming WoW? Because they've just added a threat mechanic. Now monsters have to attack the tanks or they get penalized. Do PC's take damage if they try to attack the enemy spellcasters instead of his bodyguards? This is so lame.

I'll add my 2 cents. I really like Elder Evils. In a way, there may not seem to be that much usable crunch in it, because each chapter is basically a different campaign. Each chapter has a huge, potentially world ending villain or monster (such as an undead planet, a near-continent sized sea monster, and Kyuss himself), some encounters related to that monster, and an outline for how the campaign as a whole should go.

I like this book for two reasons- 1. Many of the monsters are really cool. I like big, crazy, Cthulhu-y monsters. 2. I like the campaign outlines. Sometimes, as a GM, I have a cool idea for the end of a campaign and maybe the start, but getting through the middle is tricky sometimes. I may not use the exact outlines in the book, but I think they'd make good templates for me to build my own campaigns out of. Obviously this is less of an issue if you're running an AP.

Exemplars of Evil, I didn't like as much at first. It does have some cool feats and alternate class features in the beginning, but the rest of the book is a bunch of NPC's and encounters. Usually this isn't really my cup of tea, so I didn't look at it that closely at first. But the Kyuss chapter in Elder Evils refers back to one of the NPC groups from Exemplars of Evil (the Tolstoffs) so I went back and took a better look at it. The Tolstoff chapter is really cool, and I'm going to add them to my AoW campaign. I will flesh out their keep and surrounding lands a bit, as I thought that the mini-adventure was kinda minimal and could use some fleshing out. But the core that's there is really good. I still haven't read the other villians' chapters, but if they're of the same quality as the Tolstoffs' then they'll be good too.

I don't subscribe for two reasons-
1. My mailbox kinda sucks and my mail is often wet and always bent if it's anything bigger than a letter. And I want my Pathfinders in nice condition.
2. I work at a bookstore, and I've been able to order some of the issues and use my employee discount, so that benefit combined with the first problem makes me not really want to subscribe.

They're great books and I plan to keep buying them, but unless I get a different apartment and job; I won't be subscribing.

Tarren Dei wrote:

I haven't been keeping up with this thread as it took me until now to access the article. Five days WotC website was keeping me out.

Now, I've seen it, I have to ask (and forgive me if it has been asked already) but what is it about Crimson Edge that make it a once per day power? Why couldn't a rogue do this 100 times a day if they made their rolls?

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't want to do this 100 times a day, I'm just asking why not?

And don't you be starting on about how I shouldn't expect a game to be reasonable because it is just a game. This is a game with encumberance, ecologies for monsters, histories, settings, and all sorts of other attempts to make the fantasy seem real.

This 'daily martial power' thing would only make sense to me if it were something so strenuous doing it twice per day would kill a martial artist. Please convince me this isn't just plain dumb because I want to believe in 4e.

From ENWorld (including two posts because I think they mesh well together, like PB and chocolate):

Dr. Awkward wrote:

Campbell wrote:

I know this won't cure the ills of the more immersion oriented among us, but I tend to see Daily and Encounter Powers as a form of narrative control being handed to the players. It's not that a given character is literally incapable of performing the actions represented by the Powers more often than the limitations in the rules allow, its that they don't. It's just not appropriate for cinematic or narratively appropriate for a character to continually perform these daring feats.

In the rogue's case I'd say that their special abilities require specific openings in their opponents' defenses which don't come along that often. Rather than having the DM detail these openings and have the rogue's player react to them, we instead give the player of the rogue a limited amount of narrative power to determine when his opponents leave him with an opening for the maneuvers he is capable of performing.

...

Here's why that doesn't make sense to me. If you have one super cool ability that you can only use once per day you are probably going to save it for the main bad guy, and not waste it on his mooks. But aren't the mooks the ones that are going to open themselves up to the nasty attacks because they have less combat skill than their leader? The midlevel lizardman fighter warlord is going to know how to defend against different attacks, that his classless minions have never encountered or heard of. If the enemy leaving an opening is what lets the attack happen, then the odds of it happening against the "boss character" are very slim compared to the lackeys.

Only one of the other players in my group and I care enough to pay attention to WotC's previews and such. He loves buying and reading game books, and gets just about everything that's put out for D&D. But neither of us like what we're reading.

The other core gamers in the group seemed mostly annoyed that the edition even exists, let alone how the game works.

Then there are the more periferal players who don't really care that much about the system, but just like to hang out and role-play. Honestly, many of them don't know the current rules that well, so if we did change the rules on them, I foresee a lot of confusion and disinterest forming.

So, yeah there's a lot of apathy with some anger and negativity. But then most of us are generation x, so I guess we're prone to that kind of response.

Has anyone here ever played a gnome? In 25 years of gaming in 3 continents, I've never seen or even heard of someone even contemplating playing a gnome.

Several. They're really fun, and they make kick-ass spellcasters (+2 dex and con rocks, plus the size modifier to hit and ac). And whisper gnomes are insanely good.

By the way, druid has been my favorite class since 1st edition.

Jeremy, I hear what you're saying. I have about $16.95 invested in 3.5 WOTC Books, having skipped 2nd and 3.0. For me, it makes a huge difference in willingness to convert.

It also makes the concerns of those who have invested a lot of money very understandable.
*******************

Ultimately, I think the success and failure of 4th edition depends on whether they can "break the ice" with GMs, specifically.

If it's a halfway quality system, supported by a good setting and good support material... I believe most people will be willing to try it, if only as a player. If the edition can get it's foot in the door, it can start to gain a following.

"If you run it, they will play."

If you can't get people to GM it for the resistant skeptics, then initial sales will be slow and it will hurt WOTC, maybe kill the Edition.

This, to me, is the biggest factor. If I was WOTC, I would want Paizo to convert, and insofar as making sound business decisions I'd want to help with that conversion. If you can get GMs running, it will happen.

Getting me to convert depends on whether I like the setting, and whether I trust the quality of the adventure material written. That's where I actually have my doubts about the new edition.

QFT. I'm not crazy about what I've been hearing about 4th, so I really don't want to put in the time, effort, and money to buy and read all the rules and plan a game to DM. But if someone else was DMing, and I just had to show up and play, I'd totally try it for a few evenings. I just don't know anybody who's planning on running it. They might even win me over to the new game. But I'm not putting in the work myself. I'm guessing there are a lot of people like me. It takes a lot more effort to run a game than to play in it (even with a published adventure), so you really have to make it worthwhile (and convince people that it's worthwhile).

If HP just represent morale rather than physical health, why don't insults deal damage? Or fear spells and effects?

Set wrote:

If Player Bob wants to play a Paladin, and they aren't available, Bob is denied his 'fun.' If Player Bob wants to play an Errol Flynn-esque swashbuckling Rogue who draws his initials in the air with his Rapier, or a woodsy sort of scout who plinks people with a Shortbow from the forest canopy, he can't, and, again, Bob is denied his 'fun.'

As a friendly, devil's advocate, isn't it reasonable to say that the former is a Fighter and the later a Ranger?

No, because a fighter is a defender. They must wear lots and lots of armor and stand there to be attacked by the enemy. That is their role.

I like that tumble is a rogue class ability rather than a skill. In 3rd edition it's too good and too easy for everyone to get. That may be all that I like though.

If your skills aren't based on intelligence, that makes it a dump stat for everyone except wizards. I don't like that at all. Every ability score should have some effect on every character. It makes sense for charisma to be a potential key attribute as it lets you play a swashbuckler type character, but I think the cunning rogue is just as viable an archetype.

I don't want to totally sidetrack the thread, but there are definite parallels between the 4th edition rogue and WoW rogues- having special strike powers for attacks, several of those strikes being contingent on wielding daggers/light blades, talent trees, leather armor proficiency, the striker/dps role.

I'm going to be mixing both of them and Expediton to the Ruins of Greyhawk into my campaign.

We just finished TFoE, and the 4 PC party was feeling pretty overwhelmed. Luckily they found a "helpful" whisper gnome rogue imprisoned by the Vecna worshipers who joined the party. He said he was looking for magic and nobody really asked him what kind of magic or what for. At the end of BWK, I'm going to add a few youngish black dragon offspring of Ilthane with a mini dragon horde where the gnome will find what he needs to free his master. Then things will get interesting.

1. No.

2. I will not buy the products for 4th edition. (unless they look really cool and are easily convertible). Although there's still material that you've put out that I haven't bought and run yet for 3.5 (like Shackled City), so I'd probably just get that.

3. I would happily keep buying stuff.

Crodocile wrote:

Sebastian wrote:

Protagonist and Antagonist fight. They use guns and shoot near each other, around each other, whatever. Someone might get hit in the shoulder, but even if they do, it doesn't slow them down. Eventually they get disarmed and they fight hand to hand using whatever additional weapons the environment provides (including nailguns, boards, chairs, the dropped guns, etc).

This is in 3rd edition rules. It's called nonlethal damage. I'm okay with a punch to the gut not causing huge wounds.

But getting hit with a battle axe should do more than make you sad.

Huh. I didn't know getting hit with a battle axe in 3e caused nonlethal damage. Would you care to elaborate on what effect such a wound has in that system? Does it cause you to move slower? Swing less accurately? What does it do that indicates "real" damage to you.

And way to invoke the false dichotomy! Anymore strawman arguments you want to offer up, or do you want to actually engage in an intelligent discussion?

You totally missed my point. The part of the action movie where the heroes get disarmed and punch it out. That, in 3E would cause nonlethal damage. What you want in the game is already there.

I'm saying that in 4th edition. If a battle axe is swung with force and hits somebody, it should do more than demoralize them. Axes should cut flesh. I think we agree on that.

From now on I'll try to spell things out better.

And if you really want an rpg that works like a buddy cop movie, maybe you should find something other than D&D.

Protagonist and Antagonist fight. They use guns and shoot near each other, around each other, whatever. Someone might get hit in the shoulder, but even if they do, it doesn't slow them down. Eventually they get disarmed and they fight hand to hand using whatever additional weapons the environment provides (including nailguns, boards, chairs, the dropped guns, etc).

This is in 3rd edition rules. It's called nonlethal damage. I'm okay with a punch to the gut not causing huge wounds.

But getting hit with a battle axe should do more than make you sad.

I think what happened is that Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy (Golden Compass) became very popular, so WotC wanted to put Gyptians into their D&D. And they probably had no idea what to do with halflings, so they squished them into that role.

In other words, halflings are exactly what veteran D&D players expect from the 4th Edition refinement to something that worked well in 3rd Edition. Similar flavor, mechanical underpinning to the story, and as much, if not more, fun.

Really? Seems to me veteran gamers remember halflings as hobbit homebodies who stick to their burrows and love nothing more than a good meal and their pipe. Now their "similar flavor" is that they're nomadic river people? Isn't that kinda the opposite? Of course giving us the exact opposite of what D&D used to be is "exactly what veteran D&D players expect from 4th Edition."

Crodocile wrote:

If I ever get there in the AP, I'm using Cthulhu from Horrorclix.

http://www.wizkidsgames.com/wk_article.asp?cid=40709

Okay, it's not 100% right, but it's got the right feel and it's a good size (friggin' huge!).

Well, if you consider a 30mm "average human" mini to be about 6', then that statue is 68' tall...true 1/64 scale would be over 85' tall. Either way, that's well into the Colossal size category, not Huge. Are you planning to cheese him as a Colossal and say "my players won't know the stats anyway" or are you going to up-stat Kyuss to a Colossal?

By my math, a Huge creature shouldn't be more than a 6" action figure, right?

Oh, and don't forget to increase the size of the spire-top...your big 'ol Cthulhu is going to take up a lot of space ;)

D'oh! Yeah, Cthulhu is definitely colossal. I haven't actually read the last adventure (we're only on Blackwall Keep). I just assumed Kyuss was colossal based on the illustrations on the cover of Dungeon magazine and Elder Evils. Maybe I will use the Nightbringer from Warhammer 40,000 then.

crosswiredmind wrote:

You post sparked an AH HA moment ... auras and the like are for the players to manage.

I think we can kinda go back to the old "caller" days in a sense. For those that do not know what a "caller" is - back in the early days of D&D it was suggested that one player act as the communications link between the party and the DM. It did not work too well and very few people actually did this.

But anyway ... I think one player can act as a tracker for the auras and persistent effects generated by PCs for other PCs. That way some of the complexity is shared between the GM and the players.

Thoughts?

My thought is that players are horrible at tracking stuff. ;-) It's gotten to the point where after any player announces damage, someone chimes in with "Did you include +1 from the bard song?"

And we don't even have a bard in the party...

It will be interesting to see if they can organize this information to be more easily tracked. I definitely think getting rid of the Baskin-Robbins level of flavored bonuses will go a long way in that regard.

I agree that that's one of the more annoying aspects of 3rd edition, especially at higher levels. Okay, I've got bardsong, rage, prayer, haste, bite of the weretiger, etc going; what's my to hit bonus? And remembering all of the modifiers from round to round depending on their different durations. If they can simplify that, it would be a very good thing. I don't know if they're trying to make it worse though, as the elf preview seemed to show.

And back to the topic at hand- As much as I dislike the rule that lets you come back to consciousness with 1/4 of your HP when you roll a 20, the min-maxer in me can't help but want to make a character who utilizes the feats, alternate class features, spells, and magic items that will come out in all of the splatbooks released in the next few years to invariably let you come back to half HP when you roll a 15+. Because you know that'll be possible (or something in that ballpark). I can't decide if I want to call it the "I'll be back" build or the "Energizer Bunny" build. I'm thinking it should be some kind of warrior, so it'd have a lot of HP to work with.

Right. Ok. So we're just fanatics who are incapable of reason or logical thought. We can't read something, recognize whether we think it's good or bad based on what's written, and come up with an opinion. That's so much better. And I realize he wasn't directly calling us racists, but you have to admit that using that language is pretty inflammatory. I could say that the CEO of WotC is like Hitler because he's telling everyone what to do. I'm not calling him Hitler, but if I was in his place, I'd be pissed off. I was up until 2 this morning recreating a gay rights march in San Francisco with African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos, and Whites, so being compared to a racist this morning (even obliquely) is not only really off the mark, but really insulting.

Also, putting the verbiage aside, the basic statement is wrong. I have read pretty much every release WotC has put out about 4th edition. I have evaluated each on it's own merit. Some I like (the zombie article, more attention to Far Realms and Fey, increasing racial differences at higher levels, etc), but the majority I don't. That's because I can think, and make decisions rationally. Disliking 4th edition from what I've heard so far (including the Death and Dying article), isn't an ideology. It's an opinion. A reasoned opinion.

crosswiredmind wrote:

Some of the alternatives that folks have mentioned mentioned sound interesting but the 4E mechanic has actually been play tested.

Is it so awful that it can't possibly be any good or should we first give it a try and see how it works?

I would rather not jump to conclusions too quickly.

I would rather see sane responses to these articles, but I don't think it's going to happen. These are not conclusions being jumped to, they are emotions being vented. It's like trying to reason with a racist; despite what the KKK says, racism is not based on rational thought. Same goes for 4e hate.

Edit: To clarify the above is not directed to reasonable posters who dislike 4e and are capable of communicating displeasure (think: Aberzombie) without twisting simple statements into unintentioned and ridiculous slams (think: they said "all death is bad", but I can think of various contrived examples where death isn't bad and be willfully blind to the point of the article and the reality of most in-game deaths).

People who don't like 4th edition D&D are like the KKK? Hyperbole much? WTF, man?

Aberzombie wrote:

From novels and short stories:

Character's that we know are still around: Drizzt and Elminster.

Character's who are more than likely dead: Cattie-Brie, Wulfgar, Regis, Bruenor, Mirt, Durnan, Artemis Entreri, Jherek & friends (from The Threat from the Sea Trilogy), the Uskevren Family (from Sembia books).

That's all I can think of for now.

Oh yeah - Happy Mardi Gras!

MWAHAhAHAHAHA ! you fools are underestimating the new greatest 4e power source of them all : Marketing !

Let's say that conveniently all those characters were held for some unexplainable reason locked out of time by the spellplague, and they have just been released into the world again, shall we ?

MWAHAHAHAHAHA ?

What ? makes no sense ? Whatever, given the rest...

Hey, Okay, I AM making this up, but you know, there is a pattern.

Yay! Chronomancy fixes everything!

crosswiredmind wrote:

Advertising and marketing have always been about accentuating the positive and ignoring the negative aspects of a product or service. Its nothing new,

I agree. I don't have a problem with this aspect of their advertising at all. IMO, it makes sense. "Hey, playtester. Feel free to talk about what you liked about the game while we fix the stuff you didn't. We're going to keep the stuff you liked so have fun talking about it all you want." Really, IMO, there's nothing wrong with this.

crosswiredmind wrote:

If you think WotC is bad you should see what Games Workshop just did to all of the folks that were waiting for a 40K RPG.

Not wanting to threadjack, but care to give us all the dirt? I'd love to talk about something other then 4E negativity.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying Game has been around for many years, but until recently, there has not been a game set in GW's very popular future setting- Warhammer 40,000. A few years ago, to the great joy of their fans (including me), they announced that they were going to produce an RPG for Warhammer 40K. It was supposed to come out (IIRC) this time last year, but the release date was pushed back a couple of times. It finally came out about a week ago and sold out almost immediately (a limited edition, very expensive, version came out last month and sold out in about an hour). Almost simultaneous with the release of the game was an announcement from the company (Black Industries, owned by Games Workshop), that they were going to stop supporting their games in order to focus on making novels! So this new, long-awaited and extremely successful game is being canceled as soon as it's born. From what I've heard, it's an excellent game. I can't wait for my copy to arrive, so I can start playing.

It's just another in a long line of terrible business decisions by GW, and another slap in the face to their customers and fanbase. I think it's partly due to being kicked in the crotch for several years by GW that I'm so pessimistic about D&D 4th edition. There are similar tendencies by WotC and GW- extreme raises in price of product, frequent new editions for their own sake, and a complete disregard for older veteran players in the hopes of gaining more newer and younger customers. At least GW's profits and stock prices have been going down the toilet for the last few years, so their reaping what they've sown. We'll see how Hasbro makes out.

And you thought this would take the conversation away from 4E negativity! :p

I don't know about 4th edition, but you could convert just about anything into a 3rd edition adventure. My buddy just converted a Warhammer novel into a 3.5 D&D adventure. I ran an adventure based on the movie "Aliens" where the party fought a bunch of modified medium black dragons. You could convert Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" or The X-Men's "Dark Phoenix Saga" into a 3rd editon adventure. You just have to do a certain amount of work to figure out what level frenzied berzerker Wolverine the half-troll is, or whatever. In fact, I even remember a 1st edition adventure based on "Alice in Wonderland."

My point is that saying you can convert a 3rd edition adventure to 4th edition doesn't really say much about how close 4th edition is to 3rd. There are similar elements, in that a group of protagonists undergoes a series of trials and/or comes into conflict with one or more antagonists in order to accomplish a goal or goals. I'm sure you could convert "Rise of the Runelords" to Rifts if you wanted to (actually it would be pretty easy).

From what we've heard 4th edition D&D is a very different game from 3rd edition D&D, and being able to play the same adventure (after changing it) doesn't really mean anything.

The Worlds and Monsters book talks about using The Far Realms and Faerie (Feywilds) more. If they put out cool supplements for one or the other, and the basic mechanics of the game are good, it's conceivable that I could run a game. But it wouldn't really be a D&D game. It'd be more like fantasy Call of Cthulhu or The Books of Magic RPG at that point.

And even if I did, it would be core only; because there's no way I'm buying dozens of splatbooks again.

If I ever get there in the AP, I'm using Cthulhu from Horrorclix.

http://www.wizkidsgames.com/wk_article.asp?cid=40709

Okay, it's not 100% right, but it's got the right feel and it's a good size (friggin' huge!).

We thought we had a character die on the grimlock cliff, but then his player remembered that he had a ring of feather falling. It's the kind of item that players don't think they need, until they really do.

And we did have a potential TPK in the Hextor temple. But I figured they're lawful, honorable, and intelligent; and living foes are potentially more valuable than dead foes, so they took the PC's hostage instead of coup de grace-ing them.

I'm planning on rolling an affliction specced tiefling warlock named Noobpwner. I'm not sure what craft skills I'm going to give him yet. Maybe herbalism and alchemy.

Great ideas, guys! I'm about to run BWK, and I'm definitely building the keep now. Thanks for sharing your builds.

A new edition in a few years is a sure thing. What number they assign it, whether it be 4.5 or 5, remains to be seen. That's just how the industry works.

GGODD- Good Guys Only in Dungeons & Dragons

PORC- Players Of Righteous Characters

HORNEA- Happily Only Roleplaying Non Evil Alignments

If I think of any others I'll let you know.