18%
Finally, at Free RPG-Day, I got my hands at the 4th edition PHB. No, it was not for free, and no, I did not buy it but laid it back into the shelf after skimming through. So, what did I find? First, the races: The gnomes where removed from the PC races really. Instead we find dragonborn, something like feyborn and – tieflings. Yes, tieflings are a PC race in 4th ed.! Of course one always could play every race one wanted (and the GM approved, even assapanoi). Of course this is part of the fun, that one’s imagination is the only limit. But if one plays a chaste succubus on her quest to become a paladin, she would be a single, very special character, and you would not find ten of her in the next tavern. Now tieflings are common (N)PCs. Just seems wrong to me, same with the dragonborn and the fey-type. In contrast to this, halflings are not mentioned with the other races, too, but at least appear later on. But are they thus still a PC race? – The alignments: I do not know, but the new description of the (chaotic) evil alignment fits our current (righteous) good characters. Weird. – The line of effect rule again has not been changed: The heavy ballista bolt fired at a person behind a glass window will only destroy the glass, but the person will stay unharmed. The giant throwing a boulder at a character behind a pane of glass destroys only the pane and the PC is not affected, but if he throws the same large rock against the house, it could collapse and kill the character. So, the exact same action of the giant will have two opposite effects (unharmed vs. dead), depending on the denomination the giant uses? Come on! – The “take 10” rule: I do not like it. When a task is easy or difficult, a bonus or a malus could be applied, or the number to reach could be modified, but foregoing to throw the dice? I always thought throwing the dices was an integral part of the game. – The pantheons have been mixed up: Corellon (elf) and Moradin (dwarf) appear together with human gods, but the classical Forgotten Realms gods are missing. – The description of the priests reads like one of a fighter. What about the healing, guiding, blessing and so on work? Eldath priest do not fit the description at all. So, all priests are war-priests now: Fighters with magic abilities. Instead of a wizard now different classes of magicians exist. - I further do not like the black and orange paintings, which appear in a jumble to me. – The box of PHB, DMG and MM is sold out and out of production, according to the game store. But, as a special offer, it could maybe be possible to get the three books without box for the same price as with it. Yes, less for the same money is a special offer. Do they really want to sell them, I wonder? Comparing the price to the one I paid for my current PHB, it was more than doubled. (It seems to be made from paper yet, no gold visible.) Furthermore no translation of the PHB was available.
Conclusion: We will stay with our *Advanced* (!) Dungeons & Dragons by TSR, and may WotC do what they want to do. Given the frequency of our sessions, the advancement we make, and the large amount of stuff we accumulated (and still accumulate, as old edition material keeps to be sold, or many of it even given away for free), we have got enough to play until reaching the very old age category. As we also do not like where the official recent (meaning 1361 and following years) events in the Forgotten Realms head to, we even decided that our group is just in another multiversum, where it is independent from - uh, whatever WotC thinks up. So: We will stay with AD&D, and you would have to wrestle it from our cold, stiff, undead fingers! Beware!
Elomir's post is pretty interesting.
Most of us are on the internet ranting or posting about 4th edition for a long time now.
Sometimes I forget that there are those who had no idea what 4th edition will be like until the books hit the shelves and they are flipped though.
Must be quite a dissapointing shock for them if they love 3rd edition. I know if it wasnt for the internet I would have probably just bought the books sight-unseen....brought them home....read them....and have the shock of the changes hit me like a freight train.
Depending on how long it takes us to get through our current campaigns (which include Rise of the Runelords once a week, as well as two other campaigns that alternate weeks - Trinity and Changeling) We will Definately be playing some form of Paizo Adventure path (Love the new rules) and whatever else we talk the DM into running. Maybe another changeling game, Maybe something in Ebberon, who knows.
I do know we're not too interested in 4e.
Hiya.
Hackmaster and BECMI/RulesCyclopedia for us. We did the 3e thing for over 2 years, and it just kept getting worse and worse (ie, we kept finding more and more things we didn't like)...so we went back to Hackmaster and BECMI/RC.
4e for me, while it may be a playable rpg, isn't even in the same dimension as the previous editions. Hell I had/have a hard time accepting 3.5e as "D&D". *shrug*
Of course, we will switch off to other systems for weeks/months at a time every now and then (Star Frontiers, HARP, Talislanta 3rd, MSHA, etc.). But for D&D, Hackmaster/BECMI.
What's BECMI?
Basic, Expert, something, Master, Immortal. I think...
What's BECMI?Basic, Expert, something, Master, Immortal. I think...
C is for Companion... and that's good enough for me. :)
It was the teal box for levels 15-25. Basic D&D 1984.
If I can make the switch while no one is looking it will be Rolemaster (ICE) but until then 3.5E for myself and my group. May 4th ed rust in peace.
A very slightly tweaked version of Chaosium Basic Rules(Runequest) - with D&D magic/spells.
We started working on a conversion of my homebrew D&D setting to this a couple of months back ... and hoo boy has it worked well.
I have a simple and effective conversion system for 1/2/3/3.5 D&D, so I'll still be buying Paizo (and other tpp) 3.4 & PFRPG stuff - but system wise in play it'll be Runequest. No question. It's just so much smoother to play, and wonderfully descriptive, really encourages roleplay too.
My tweaks have been added to allow pcs to grow a bit quicker in power (to cater for the nasty D&D monsters etc), but is basically RQ/Basic Rules.
3.5 all the way. We're in the middle of a long running campaign, so we'll probably still be doing 3.5 well into 2009.
I voted for "The jury's still out" originally, as I didn't see any way I could decide until I'd read the 4E rulebooks. Now that I've read them, I can say unequivocally that we'll be playing 3.5E at the end of 2008. When we finish the current campaign, we may move to 3.Pi...
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I will be playing 3.5 D&D. I am playing in a Rise of the Runelords campaign. The DM reigns are being handed over to me, after we have played through Burnt offerings and we are nearing the end of the Skinsaw murders. I might nudge the players into playing the Beta test of the Pathfinder game. We have already adopted the skill system.
So to answer the question, I will either be playing 3.5 or Pathfinder.
In the local game store, we started playing 4.0 when Keep on the Shadow fell came out, and we continued for another month, and the DM put forth a valiant effort. I also DMed a bit, because we had an over flow of people, and I was the only other person who had purchased the books at the time and had read enough of them. After another month of both playing and running 4.0 I had enough. My fun was not increased, it was not easier, and it was an exercise in frustration. Treasure packets Bleh. For treasure give me lists to roll on and skim, if I don’t like the die roll.
The 4.0 game continued until about a month ago, and ran a small 3.5 game with 2-3 players on the side. The 4.0 game has collapsed, and we are all playing 3.5
Well, it probably should be "What edition of D&D DID you play at the end of 2008?". The answer for our group is AD&D 2.0 (with house rules), as we expected. And we expect it to be the same at the end of 2009.
I'm currently working on a getting a 3.5 group together. So my guess that long time ago (of play 3e) was correct.
I played 2 games (4 if counting pbp) of 3.5. No PfRPG beta, no 4e, no Conan, etc. 3.5 all the way baby, all the way.
Update: "What edition of D&D did you play at the end of 2009?". The answer for our group is still AD&D 2.0 (with house rules), as we expected. And we expect it to be the same at the end of 2010!
3.5/Pathfinder hybrid.
D) None of the above
Update: "What edition of D&D did you play at the end of 2009?". The answer for our group is still AD&D 2.0 (with house rules), as we expected. And we expect it to be the same at the end of 2010!
Question.... have you guys come up with skill rules for AD&D that don't-- well actually, have you come up with skill rules at all? That's the main thing 2nd ed was severely lacking in imo. If you've houseruled in some good skill rules I'd love to hear them.
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3.6 (3.5 heavily houseruled). i might incorporate stuff from 4e, but for now, 3.6 works. :-)
messy
Same here. 3.5 with a boatload of variant rules and house rules. I'll take a look at the 4.0 SRD to see if there's something worth prying and retro-fitting.
But I'll stick with 3.5 for quite some time.
Whoa. It seems that a whole age has passed since this poll.
With hindsight, I must change my statement. No look at the 4.0 SRD, took a look at the manuals, saw nothing worth prying and retro-fitting.
Right now, I'm playing AD&D 2nd edition, 3.5 with an handful of HR (newbie players), and a heavily modified 3.X game based on the PFRPG.
Update: "What edition of D&D did you play at the end of 2009?". The answer for our group is still AD&D 2.0 (with house rules), as we expected. And we expect it to be the same at the end of 2010!Question.... have you guys come up with skill rules for AD&D that don't-- well actually, have you come up with skill rules at all? That's the main thing 2nd ed was severely lacking in imo. If you've houseruled in some good skill rules I'd love to hear them.
Well, first I must say that generally we make use of dices only moderately. There are whole sessions without throwing a single dice, because we are more of a “tale tell” than “hack & slash” RPG-group (on the other hand, there are sessions which can only be described as bloody massacres). Therefore, we also do not use skill checks very often. It is more like “The mages and priests can read, they check the libraries, the ranger is experienced with animals, he takes care of the horses.” And for reading a plain book, one does not need a skill check. While seldom using the skill system, the following was changed: There are no additional skill points gained from intelligence, but one can exchange a language point with a skill point and vice versa. (Not sure whether intelligence granted additional skill points in the original AD&D 2.0, but the localized Schulz/Körner version does, although this can be due to an unclear translation.) Second, for all skills a teacher is needed to gain the first as well as any following skill point. And this teacher must have the double amount of skill points for the specific skill, which the PC wants to learn, e.g. to get a third skill point in something, the teacher must have 6 skill points spend for the same something skill (which required some other teacher with 12 skill points, and so on, which quickly leads to skill point values higher than one to be especially rare). Only if a character would make extraordinary frequent, successful use of some skill she could get a bonus skill point from the DM. (Which has not happened in the last about 16 years, but is the obvious way NPCs gain their second skill point allowing to teach those with zero points – and taking a lot of money for it, of course.) We use neither the skills of the players as PC skills (“I offer to program a really nice web site for it, in xhtml, with CSS, JavaScript, nice images, according to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and with an RSS feed to the dragon, if he/she/it doesn’t eat me. OK?”) nor previous knowledge. Instead, according to their class(es), the PCs have initial skills: For example, members of the clergy know religion (obviously, isn’t it?) and reading and writing, and mages know about reading and writing, too. In contrast to AD&D 2.0 also ranger can learn priest-skills (hey, they even get priest spells at higher levels, so it seemed natural to also grant them the skills) and priests of god(desse)s connected to warfare can learn several skills of fighters. But on the other hand, rangers cannot learn skills specific to magicians (where would be the connection there?). In contrast to “skills of other classes cost one extra point” it is “skills of other classes cannot be learned” (but one can more easily multi-class). Additionally all characters can do simple (!) calculations, such as to get the right amount of change at the market place. (Hm, well, our now deceased druid never understood the concept of money and our ranger just is not very bright, while the mages would give their last cooper for any kind of book, therefore sending any of them to the market without the rogue is out of question.) Further the number of skill points needed for some skills has been changed, and some skills added or deleted, the attribute or the modification changed, or the description of the skill changed. So, we wanted to keep it simple on purpose, and therefore voluntarily introduced neither a more complicated skill system nor any (!) feat system.
we are doing 3/3.5 for the forseeable future. everyone has all the books and all the new pathfinder stuff fits so why change.
What edition of D&D do you currently expect to be playing at the end of 2008?OD&D(1974).
like i have been for years.
currently playing Swords and wizardry with JoeBlank as referee.
but i last ran OD&D(1974) at Gary Con.
see y'all in a couple weeks there.
Wow a 9-year old thread Resurrection....that's impressive.
I ended 2008 finishing up some 3.5 games.
I started 2019 with a 5e and a 4e game, lol.
End of 2008? That was either the end of a GURPS: Space Opera campaign, or the start of my last D&D 3.5 campaign.
We switched to PFRPG in 2011.
Not counting PbP...
My last PFRPG campaign ended in 2016, and that group broke up.
I'm now in two weekly TTRPG groups, with one other player from my old group in each. (Not the same person.)
Group 1 is playing a series of short campaigns (typically 6-12 sessions each) in different narrative-focued/rules-light systems. (Including Dungeon World, other "Powered by the Apocalypse" games, Fate, and a GUMSHOE system called Swords of the Serpentine.
Group 2 is playing through Dragon Heist using D&D 5e.
Yup.