Ndar's page

Meh - silly warring. Its been a long, long time since I've bought a brand-new video game for a console. Why? They try to charge 60 bucks for untested garbage. There are so low of standards for what constitutes a good game (for my personal expectations) that I'd rather play my SNES on infinite repetition of games than contend with most of the new rubbish. That being said, obviously the quality of games goes to the individual user in question. I will never support a console that tries, in any way, shape, or form, to hurt the used gaming industry. The only way I've found the handful of games I'm willing to pay full-price for in the past 3 years, is through Gamestop. That alone, is enough to make me not buy any new system right off the shelf until, in plain print, each describes what they're trying to do to destroy the used-gaming industry.

Now add in the creepy feeling of 'Big Brother,' and I'm really sad. I'm a huge fan of the 360 as a whole - Gears of War is one of my favorite franchises (although not impressed with Judgement) and I'm honestly heartbroken at Microsoft's approach to social-media my living room. I have a computer - clearly, I'm typing this forum post. My T.V. is for television, movies, and games and I need no further cross-integration.

Then again, I'm an old Grognard who still plays AD&D. My 2 cents, in a nutshell, is simple:

I won't buy any next gen at this rate; I haven't been a fan of the Nintendo since the 64/Cube era, honestly. Alas, perhaps cometh the dark-ages of gaming. Then again, maybe Sony is watching the Microsoft fallout and will drastically fix their rumours of anti-used gaming and such to snatch up the now unsatisfied portion of the market.

The following is a disclaimer: If you disagree with me, that doesn't mean you're an idiot, nor does it mean I am. Just opinions; respect them, agree or disagree, and move on.

To deny 4e brought us good things, is a blatant lie. I've never played a 'perfect' game mechanic, and likely never will. I typically play multiple different systems as the whim drives me, depending on how complicated I feel like having my games, or how quick, down, and dirty I want it to run. They all have ways of influencing the other games - from Warhammer and Whitewolf, to 2nd edition, 3.0, and Pathfinder - they all start to blend together eventually.

I don't 'hate' 4e, just don't like it as much as I like other things. My only real complaint with 4e was the 1/2 level to everything silliness. Skills were just so boring. You're either trained, so its a skill of 5, or you're not, and its a skill of 0, and it kinda stopped there. Really not fond of that at all.

That said, I'm not fond of the d20 level-based approach to every single mechanic in the game, either. I've never had a 3.0+ game not break around the level 12 mark. Doesn't mean i stopped playing, we just 'fought through the pain.' So the constant argument over balance really means nothing, so long as you're constantly having fun.

Me? I don't have fun when I'm hitting every single swing, so I never play characters with a fighter's base attack bonus - leaves some challenge in the game for me. (The exception being Paladin, so I usually just run a moderate strength one and focus on charisma/con and try to keep myself at a minimalist level).

All that being said, there will always be a mind greater than my own, thus a mind greater than them as well, and thus greater than even the original designers of anything ever designed. Why not try new things, even if others have tried them before? What does it harm? Don't like it - don't use it. The miracle of Rule 0.

Some interesting points; I'll contribute a few things here.

First and foremost, Monk and Paladin have been my favorite classes since AD&D, and I really couldn't care less about the mechanics or power within. I absolutely love the discipline approach - through faith or dedication. That being said, after playing all the previous editions of Monk, I find Pathfinder's actually incredibly overwhelming and powerful. I've never been happier. I mean, 2d10 damage, rogue's attack bonus, teleportation, elemental damage on your fists - or stunning... and that's not even including the strength of the dual-wielding flurry. I've never had complaints here, except that my CMD is always ridiculously high. Anyway, my point is - I don't feel its broken from my perspective, but thats all we're really talking about here isn't it? Perspective.

As far as Rogue, with the simple task of flanking, you're doing a Fireball on hit with no save - nuff said, tactically. In fact, more often than not, Rogues take the tactics out of a combat scene when its just a hack-n-slash fest. Flanking - death. But you're absolutely right in the skill department, they do need a way to hammer home their skill expertise. Then again, taking Skill Focus every even level instead of a nifty little perk can easily fix this, if that's your concern. Everything should be a trade of sacrifice and gain. Then again, lots of ways to be immune to sneak attack...

Fighter... is fighter heh. Perspective strikes again here. From my perspective, if you're running a hack and slash game where swing sword :: kill monster techniques thrive in your campaign, fighter will reign supreme as they should. However, our campaigns tend to be much more story-driven with combat using very carefully designed fields of combat where turning over an oil barrel or a table is more important than 1d8+q damage. Fighters in my campaigns do tend to have little diversity and end up multi-classing habitually. Because of multi-classing, fighter has pretty much become the way to 'combatify' your character who otherwise wouldn't be =/