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Congratulations Christine, Europa rule! I've been living in Germany for seven months now, and I'm´impressed by how much adult people like traditional games in this country. You'll have to Google every other sentence you come up with in English to check if it is proper, maybe, but you might end up being translated back to German one day, too. Viel Glück, Tito
Hi folks, I'm amazed by the length of this thread, which has something to do with the survey on the left of Paizo's homepage, I see. Let's come out of the desert and say something, then... I have nothing against a 4th edition that comes after 8 years from the previous one. How long are 8 years in the current telematic era, everyone can tell. Okay, they pulled a fast one on us with 3.5, but I personally never bought any 3.5 book with the exception of a Polish PHB for language learning purposes. Where do you think I started learing English 25 years ago, BTW? What I hope will come out with 4th edition is a game with good variety, sensible mechanics (like 3rd edition has been) and, above all, REALLY balanced and simple rules.
Balanced and simple rules... hmmm... I liked 3rd edition, but, in the last seven years, the number of times I played D&D at the table are between the countries I lived in (three) and the number of published articles I had on Dungeon and Dragon magazines. Not much, uh? I have many reasons for that, but one of them is that the game is still too complex for a non-hardcore audience, and near to unplayable by "part-time" practitioners (let's call people with a family, a job, and more than 25 of age that way). I really welcomed WotC's announcement that 4th edition will be easier to play and less time-consuming for preparation. I hope this means: 1) The end of attacks of opportunity. There is hardly a need for them when we have Concentration checks and Mobility feats in the rulebook. 2) Easy skill ranks, proficiencies, secondary skills... whatever. It's okay to a have some choice on this for PCs, but spending one hour on arithmetic calculations to get a NPC's skill right (with a high probability of error) is absurd. Also, the magic system has still too many non-combat spell that make most skills (especially rogue skills) a waste of time. These spell were a poor choice in proto-RPG miniature games, but are a game spoiler in modern D&D (actually, they have been like that for 20+ years). I really would see change self (disguise), find traps (search), knock (open locks) and a load of other combat spells go up some levels (2 or 3) or go to the trash bin. I can't put 10 traps and 10 locked doors in each dungeon to make the rogue useful, and I can't have a "master of disguise" assassin with his nose falling off as the novice 1st-level wizards impersonates whoever he likes without too much problems. 3) The rise (and maybe the expansion) of the "DM's best friend" as the only tool for adjusting any check (including attacks).
To sum up, I really hope 4th edition will be easy enough to allow a fast and seamless transition for Paizo, as I think that keeping compatible with an updated version of the "world most famous RPG" is very important for any publisher. Keep it short and simple, please. Cheers, Tito |
