Use it in my group. Keeps the players on their toes, even at higher levels.
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I say Wizards gets a 0-lvl cantrip called "High-jacked by 11 year olds". The restrictions are the spell can only be cast near a body of water. Still working on the effect...
For me? Not really. I thought the real rules for the rituals were interesting as were some of the utility abilities, and I can appreciate the theme of the books (i.e. streamlining rolls and encouraging team work) but there is still something deeply strange about the new rules. Which in my opinion comes down to the following: 1) 4e is no longer about creative concepts and interesting not-in-the-mold characters. It's about stereotypes and controlled builds (e.g. the "war wizard" or the "control wizard"). It's saying "this is what a rogue is, this is what he does, this is the weapon he uses." Granted a player doesn't -have- to use the weapon a rogue gets a bonus with, but in effect what that does is penalize creative concepts. Wizard schools? None that I could see. [Please note: Pathfinder RPG allows a player to -choose- how they do special thing. Wizard Schools, Sorcerer bloodlines, rage points, etc. all great ideas!] 2) 4e is very focused on battle maps. I have -nothing- against battle maps. I use them all the time. But when 80% of the abilities are described in "squares" and "encounters" and over 90% of the abilities are strictly combat related, it places a certain focus on the battle mat, which, IMO, takes away from roleplaying. 3) Skills. Skills in my book is code word for class differentiation. I hate to go to this, but in 4e, it seems to me that there is significantly more overlap of skills than in 3.5e (i.e. wizards can do something a ranger can, and a ranger can do some things a rogue can, and a rogue can do things a fighter can, etc). While this encourage team building and allows for certain groups to compensate for a missing class, IMO, it takes away from the glory of each class and places their differences on combat tactics (see above). [Please note: I actually really like what Pathfinder RPG has done with skills. They have -streamlined- skills, not disappeared them.] 4) The tone of detail. What I mean, is rather than giving the DM a guide on how to make a multi-ward city, with a population and intrigue, it gives a DM a guide to making a "home city". Rather than players wearing magic items and trinkets they are filling "magic slots". Players exploring ruins for items of wonder and power? Eh, more like "treasure tables". This looks like more of a "what I don't like about 4e", but in truth it's also a "why I really am looking forward to Pathfinder RPG." I think 4e will be fun to play at times, much like I don't mind playing Hero Quest every once in awhile. But when I want to play "D&D", I'm going to play Pathfinder RPG.
I was under the impression that in 3.5e, one could take a free 5ft step. Therefore it was possible to make a 5ft step and a full round attack. In 4e, the 5ft step isn't free, it's a move action, therefore you can't make a 5ft step and full attack, I think. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I knew a guy whose DM was very against miniature/battle mats for a long time. Finally, they decided to just test one out. As it turned out, they had been using a battle mat the whole time, only it was in the DM's head. I don't use miniatures or elaborate maps, but I would strongly suggest a dry eraser board with an etched square grid on it for games in person. Or if you play online, a great, free program called Maptool ( http://rptools.net/doku.php )
Hey eveyone, I'm new to the boards here and just beginning to look into 3P as an alternative to 4e (i'm really glad paizo is carrying the dnd torch through these dark times!) One thing that was a clever (but simple) change that 4e did, was removing the free 5ft-step in combat and replacing it with the 5ft-shift or a move action with an AoO. The reason why I though this was so clever was because it removes the wandering battle phenomena (e.g. round by round, step by step, the battle wanders by 5ft-increments through the forest, down the hill, across the river...). It also makes combat harder to escape from when two opponents are toe to toe. I'm not sure if this has been discussed already, if so, please point me in the right direction, if not, I wonder what other people think about the rule change? On the side: are there plans to spell out a combat round explicitly in the rules (e.g. Standard, Move, Free, Immediate, etc.)? On reach: from what I can tell, 4e is still trying to figure out how reach will exactly work. I'm glad that it was removed from certain martial weapons, but now they seem to be struggling to give it back to larger creatures (i.e. dragons, etc). I can already smell the errata... In any case I was wondering if there were plans to revise the reach rules in 3P? Perhaps making it a combat maneuver with certain conditions? Perhaps even just qualifying it (e.g. in order to qualify for reach, two combatants must be two or more sizes apart)? Once again, I'm interested in what others think about this. Thanks! |