To quote JAMES WYATT in Wizards Presents: Races&Classes to point out the fact that D&D 4E is no RP, no sense of the true meaning of fantasy gaming, but more of a war game and a game to kick down the door, kill, and loot, I point to you this passage on page 34:
WHY FEY AND THE FEYWILD?
Fey have always been a part of D&D that has both proponents and detractors. The detractors have some good points, in my estimation---cute pixies and leprechauns aren't fun opponents, and good-aligned creatures are hard to use in combat-heavy adventures. Yes, people recognize pixies from fairy tales. But D&D is emphatically not the game of fairy-tale fantasy. D&D is a game about slaying horrible monsters, not a game about traipsing off through fairy rings and interacting with the little people.
WHAT!?
So, for example, I get no leprechaun stats in my D&D because...it's not something to kill. Nevermind the story-element for why I need a clan of leprechauns, nevermind the fact a player might want to play a leprechaun, nevermind the fact a player might want one as a cohort...they just won't be included because it's not a terrifying monster to kill.
The debate on whether or not the unicorn should be Good alignment or not came up at WotC not because they were making unicorns a fey creature and wanted fey to be neutral...they wanted unicorns to be something the PCs can kill and loot.
Anyone else STILL find 4E to be the same game now? Shall I pull out more quotes from this book? How about ones that WotC contradicted themselves on a dozen times? Give me the word, I'm ready to pick this thing apart and eat it whole.
To quote JAMES WYATT in Wizards Presents: Races&Classes to point out the fact that D&D 4E is no RP, no sense of the true meaning of fantasy gaming, but more of a war game and a game to kick down the door, kill, and loot, I point to you this passage on page 34:
WHY FEY AND THE FEYWILD?
Fey have always been a part of D&D that has both proponents and detractors. The detractors have some good points, in my estimation---cute pixies and leprechauns aren't fun opponents, and good-aligned creatures are hard to use in combat-heavy adventures. Yes, people recognize pixies from fairy tales. But D&D is emphatically not the game of fairy-tale fantasy. D&D is a game about slaying horrible monsters, not a game about traipsing off through fairy rings and interacting with the little people.WHAT!?
So, for example, I get no leprechaun stats in my D&D because...it's not something to kill. Nevermind the story-element for why I need a clan of leprechauns, nevermind the fact a player might want to play a leprechaun, nevermind the fact a player might want one as a cohort...they just won't be included because it's not a terrifying monster to kill.
The debate on whether or not the unicorn should be Good alignment or not came up at WotC not because they were making unicorns a fey creature and wanted fey to be neutral...they wanted unicorns to be something the PCs can kill and loot.
Anyone else STILL find 4E to be the same game now? Shall I pull out more quotes from this book? How about ones that WotC contradicted themselves on a dozen times? Give me the word, I'm ready to pick this thing apart and eat it whole.
Agreed! I guess he never played in UK1: Beyond the Crystal Cave. It's a classic AD&D adventure that made great use of fey creatures in a non-combat capacity.
Then again, I not sure the current designers even think about such relics when making their design choices for 4th edition.
So how long have you worked for Wizards anyway??
So where is it stated that 4E will not work the same way?
Koriatsar, in my observation, the disciples & sycophants are worse than the designers...
For what it's worth I'm as evil as the day is long...
The world(Man) has fought over the Bible in all it's forms...
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So where is it stated that 4E will not work the same way?
So how long have you worked for Wizards anyway??
Is the only counter an adhominem attack, or do you actually have a point to make about the rules of 4E and whether or not they will present a generic framework for fantasy gaming like 3E?
But you don't actually answer Koriatsar's question... ;)
And first you argue that 3e isn't a generic framework, now you're asking where it says that 4e won't be a generic framework like 3e was? Arguing in circles... not very helpful. You split hairs, then wrap them all up again to argue from a different side. You are posting for the sake of being argumentative, it would seem.
As for the issue at hand, I think that 3.x is an excellent generic set of rules for, as you have said crosswiredmind, a Greyhawk-LIKE setting. Which just happens to be the traditional fantasy setting that has been enjoyed for many, many, many, many years. 4e might be just as generic, but it will be for a different kind of fantasy. I'm not saying one is real fantasy, and one is an impostor, or something like that. They are just slightly different genres, if you will, and due to that there is an inherent lack of "genericness" in 4e when trying to use the traditional fantasy setting as presented, most recently, in 3e (and stretching back to before D&D existed).
It's like saying Marvel Superheroes is a good generic framework. Sure, but not for traditional fantasy. Same as 4e... not traditional fantasy. Perhaps what we've come to enjoy is quite a narrow definition. But that would explain why I've no interest in the "new" fantasy genre that they are going for with 4e.
(I, personally, never played Epic level rules for 3.x either, as I thought swimming up a waterfall sort of didn't fit into the traditional fantasy setting either.)
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Anyone else STILL find 4E to be the same game now? Shall I pull out more quotes from this book? How about ones that WotC contradicted themselves on a dozen times? Give me the word, I'm ready to pick this thing apart and eat it whole.
Heck yes, I'd really enjoy such a thing. I myself began a list of 4e marketing malarkey where there were condratictions galore but I seemed to have lost it over the holiday week! :-)
Bring it on, I find this stuff hilarious.
-DM Jeff
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"Finally, don't forget, at least with everyone I know, "hating" 4e is about 50% the game changes and 50% the way WotC is handling it. I bet if Paizo still ran Dragon/Dungeon and 4e was being promoted by them I would be on board..." - DitheringFool
I agree with that statement.
I also agree with this statement. I think that a better title for this thread would be: Why do the designers of 4E seem to hate D&D? Seriously, you can see thinly disguised contempt for 3.5 and all of D&D's previous editions along with all of the history and lore that accompany that in almost every blog and "official" statement they make about 4E. If you look at their professionial history most of them did far more work on obscure game systems that are not remotely similar to D&D. Let's face it. The future of our beloved hobby is in the hands of the enemy. That is a very good reason to be suspicious of 4E. If 4E were so great we would be hearing specific examples of how much better it is. Instead we get , "4E is so awesome!" over and over again with nothing to back it up along with "3.5 is so horrible because of power attack, grapple, multiclassing, etc." How many people that are pro-4E right now will do a 180, when they see the 4E PHB, and don't recognize their beloved game within it's contents? Why aren't they telling us more? What are they hiding?
To quote JAMES WYATT in Wizards Presents: Races&Classes
WHY FEY AND THE FEYWILD?
Fey have always been a part of D&D that has both proponents and detractors. The detractors have some good points, in my estimation---cute pixies and leprechauns aren't fun opponents, and good-aligned creatures are hard to use in combat-heavy adventures. Yes, people recognize pixies from fairy tales. But D&D is emphatically not the game of fairy-tale fantasy. D&D is a game about slaying horrible monsters, not a game about traipsing off through fairy rings and interacting with the little people.WHAT!?
So, for example, I get no leprechaun stats in my D&D because...it's not something to kill. Nevermind the story-element for why I need a clan of leprechauns, nevermind the fact a player might want to play a leprechaun, nevermind the fact a player might want one as a cohort...they just won't be included because it's not a terrifying monster to kill.
OK, Razz, where does he say that they categorically won't provide stats for such fey folk? What he's actually doing is defending the inclusion of any fey at all in the game. Some gamers will see the inclusion of the faery world as 'lame' but Wyatt is saying to them that there is a place for it.
Nowhere does he say that there will not be stats for leprechauns or whatever. All he says is that he doesn't really like that sort of thing, not that they will be banished.
You're putting a spin on it that just isn't there.
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I just wanted to point out that 2nd and 3rd edition previews were almost entirely done with ads and articles in Dragon Magazine... which you had to buy. So even though I felt Races and Classes might have been a few dollars overpriced, for the amount of preview material (probably several issues of Dragon worth) and nice art its not a terrible value if you are interested in 4E.
I guess I see the 'preview books' as trying to replace the exposure they would have had in 9 months of Dragon.
Would have rather seen it in Dragon though. Thought that WOTC decision sucked, but thats another story... :)
It was added content that only took up a few pages in a product you were already paying for.
OK, Razz, where does he say that they categorically won't provide stats for such fey folk? What he's actually doing is defending the inclusion of any fey at all in the game. Some gamers will see the inclusion of the faery world as 'lame' but Wyatt is saying to them that there is a place for it.Nowhere does he say that there will not be stats for leprechauns or whatever. All he says is that he doesn't really like that sort of thing, not that they will be banished.
You're putting a spin on it that just isn't there.
You're partially correct. In that WotC probably would provide leprechaun stats---but the leprechaun would have to be the evil, wish-twisting, vile creature from the movies in order to "have a reason" to be included in 4th Edition. That way, the PCs have a reason to kill the dude and, once again, loot its pot of gold.
Can you justify, then, why WotC had to spend hours debating on whether the unicorn should have a Good alignment or not? Why isn't something like that unanimous? They, apparently, don't want the unicorn to be Good in alignment, but their better senses dictate otherwise. Why else would they not want the unicorn to be Good alignment?
For the same reason they're twisting fey creatures, angels, and anything else with good alignment; to kill and loot. No one wants to kill and loot a unicorn without good reason (or an evil alignment). In 4th Edition, that's a waste of space, to the designers. A stat block you can't use? For shame, they say. Nevermind the fact thousands of DMs have used good-aligned creatures for years without hassle, for whatever reason, combat or not. It just takes some imagination. Something the "target audience" of WotC seems to be lacking so let's give them a reason not to bother using it.
Again, I will quote the very last sentence of James Wyatt: D&D is a game about slaying horrible monsters, not a game about traipsing off through fairy rings and interacting with the little people.
I don't know about you, but last I checked that is supposed to be about 25%-40% of what D&D is about, depending on the DM's style of gaming. I would lose HALF my players if I ever took D&D to 60-100% combat-only style game.
Anyone else STILL find 4E to be the same game now? Shall I pull out more quotes from this book? How about ones that WotC contradicted themselves on a dozen times? Give me the word, I'm ready to pick this thing apart and eat it whole.
Heck yes, I'd really enjoy such a thing. I myself began a list of 4e marketing malarkey where there were condratictions galore but I seemed to have lost it over the holiday week! :-)
Bring it on, I find this stuff hilarious.
-DM Jeff
I have to read through the elf section again, cause a friend of mine found one in that part of the book that had us laughing. When I find the two quotes, I'll place them here. (heck, I should start a thread on the contradictory statements of WotC on the topic of D&D itself).
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A year after releasing the most expansive explanation of these types of imaginary beings they proudly begin crowing that a new system is being developed and it will be so much better than anything else written in the past. Folks like me have invested our own money on those imaginary beings with the expectation further material may be developed such as FCIII, Yugoloths. That can't be too difficult to grasp?
Exactly.
It is as if WotC had decided to first make as much money as possible out of the folks who favors an elder version of D&D, before ditching them out.
Now they're bending the game out of shape so that it catters for a generation of computer-addicted WoW fans for which role-playing is a burden between them and their minis...
Those who favor a more traditional type of RPGing are left behind as the game is twisted into a mixture of WoW-on-paper and Warhammer 40K.
They don't need my bucks? Fine: they wont't get any...
Well spoken. A boycott of WotC products is called for. Wouldn't it be awesome if 4E flopped, and they figuratively came crawling back to us on their hands and knees begging for our patronage again? Then we can look at them smugly, and say, "Sorry, you had you chance. You treated the game and it's fans with disdain. Now, live with the consequnces of your abhorrent behaviour as you ponder your future in the unemployment line."
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And first you argue that 3e isn't a generic framework, now you're asking where it says that 4e won't be a generic framework like 3e was? Arguing in circles... not very helpful. You split hairs, then wrap them all up again to argue from a different side. You are posting for the sake of being argumentative, it would seem.
Not circles - the Players Handbook is filled with Greyhawk references. The 3E SRD is not. The PHB is spiced with fluff and the SRD is the generic framework.
I expect that the 4E PHB will be spiced with fluff and the 4E SRD will be a generic framework.
Yeah.. it would be 'awesome' if it flopped.. all those designers out of work. A rather repellent desire.
Well spoken. A boycott of WotC products is called for.
Already doing that.
Wouldn't it be awesome if 4E flopped, and they figuratively came crawling back to us on their hands and knees begging for our patronage again? Then we can look at them smugly, and say, "Sorry, you had you chance. You treated the game and it's fans with disdain. Now, live with the consequnces of your abhorrent behaviour as you ponder your future in the unemployment line."
While hoping that people get fired is somewhat cruel, I have to say that I won't cry any tears over it should it come to pass. They decided that they wanted nothing to do with me any more, so I return the favour.
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WHY FEY AND THE FEYWILD?
Fey have always been a part of D&D that has both proponents and detractors. The detractors have some good points, in my estimation---cute pixies and leprechauns aren't fun opponents, and good-aligned creatures are hard to use in combat-heavy adventures. Yes, people recognize pixies from fairy tales. But D&D is emphatically not the game of fairy-tale fantasy. D&D is a game about slaying horrible monsters, not a game about traipsing off through fairy rings and interacting with the little people.
Oh. 'K...
Wait.
WHAT?!
WOW. This is SO limiting in scope and unimaginative! :-O
I'm SO surprised these veteran game designers are throwing stuff like that on a page!
Yeah.. it would be 'awesome' if it flopped.. all those designers out of work. A rather repellent desire.
Not really, they can take their talents to places that truly deserve to have them.
Blizzard or SquareEnix, for example :P
I honestly would like to see all the older game designers back, Monte Cook, Sean Reynolds, Skip Williams, heck, sell the IP back to Gary Gygax once it flops. Put on board the talented folks here at Paizo, and you have D&D back the way it was in a few months.
I wonder why most of them quit or were laid off in the first place? Hmm...I always found it odd the first set of layoffs, then the 2nd set happened. Then some began leaving. I believe those guys knew what was coming and didn't want no part of it. Heck, Monte's ashamed to be a part of the 3.0E/3.5E fiasco, I believe (don't quote me on that).
Heh, see, the 4E-pros here will, no offense, putting their own foot in their mouths when 4.5E comes out in three or four years, followed by a "5th Edition Project" in 4E's fifth year.
Hm, I'd like to start a betting ring. How many years before 5th Edition's announcement? Any takers?
Yeah.. it would be 'awesome' if it flopped.. all those designers out of work. A rather repellent desire.
If game designer don't have their fingers on the pulse of their target audience, then they deserve to be "let go". Only time will tell if this is the case.
For my part, I think that the gentlemen responsible for 4th edition have made a lot of presumptuous statements regarding their singular vision for the future of the game. A lot of old-timers (myself included) find these statements off-putting, mainly because of the self-satisfied tone they use when dismissing the game's history and eagerness to recreate D&D's identity for a new generation.
Now there's something we agree on! Monte Cook and SKR are indeed good writers and designers. SKR put up a 'beholder PC class' on his site, and I was disappointed - he said that he would ideally want monsters statted up like that in 4E... it just seemed to be so fiddly and over-detailed. I think he produced some kick-ass stuff for Greyhawk - "Slavers" and "Scarlet Brotherhood" but he himself is a sacred cow slayer - see his article on the site about getting rid of drow item decay and other issues of old skool flava.
I think MC is one of the greates writers of RPGs - his work on the World of Darkness and Ptolus is testament to this, but again he took D&D into areas that I didn't particularly like. His stuff is a bit more "turned up to 11" than I would like, something that bled into D&D with 3E's reliance on magic items for PCs.
Hm, I'd like to start a betting ring. How many years before 5th Edition's announcement? Any takers?
I've already said and stick by a prediction of the next time a PHBI is released (be it for a 4.5 or a 5.0) is 2012 with a 2011 announcement.
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Yeah.. it would be 'awesome' if it flopped.. all those designers out of work. A rather repellent desire.
Okay, that was probably a bit harsh. It's hard not to lose your temper, when all you can do is stand and watch as your favorite hobby is being butchered by people that actually seem to hate it. What I really mean to say is that they shouldn't be working on D&D. If you have contempt for a product, you shouldn't be a designer for that product. So, if 4th edition flopped, and D&D was put in the hands of people that respect the game, it's history, and it's fans, then those designers could move on to work on games that are more suited to their gaming tastes.
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Yeah.. it would be 'awesome' if it flopped.. all those designers out of work. A rather repellent desire.If game designer don't have their fingers on the pulse of their target audience, then they deserve to be "let go". Only time will tell if this is the case.
For my part, I think that the gentlemen responsible for 4th edition have made a lot of presumptuous statements regarding their singular vision for the future of the game. A lot of old-timers (myself included) find these statements off-putting, mainly because of the self-satisfied tone they use when dismissing the game's history and eagerness to recreate D&D's identity for a new generation.
You expressed my feelings about the desingers much better than I did. If they are so dismissive of the game, it's history, and it's fans, why are they designing for it?
For my part, I think that the gentlemen responsible for 4th edition have made a lot of presumptuous statements regarding their singular vision for the future of the game. A lot of old-timers (myself included) find these statements off-putting, mainly because of the self-satisfied tone they use when dismissing the game's history and eagerness to recreate D&D's identity for a new generation.
Well said.
For the sake of fairness, I believe they are doing what they think is right for WotC and D&D (and what they're being told to do).
But there's still a credible argument that WotC is walking away from 30 years of D&D and 30 years of D&D gamers. No matter what the motivation, nor how it turns out, it sounds a bit reckless to me.
Regards all.
D&D is a game about slaying horrible monsters, not a game about traipsing off through fairy rings and interacting with the little people.
What an interesting quote.
Many would still believe it came from the same source with the loss of a few words:
D&D is a game about slaying... not [snip] interacting.
Not what Wyatt said, not what Wyatt meant, but perhaps (in part) what WotC believes: let's have more slaying and less roleplaying/interacting.
Just a thought -- don't take it too seriously :)
For the sake of fairness, I believe they are doing what they think is right for WotC and D&D (and what they're being told to do).
Oh I'm quite sure they believe that they're doing right by D&D. But the short of the long is is that they are ignoring the base. The base fans are more valuable then all the advertising in the world. The base fans are will work harder then the best PR campaign at spreading the word of your products.
If you look at their basic goals:
Make all races equally thrilling and serious
Make all classes of equal use and fun to play
Make FRCS easy for anyone to start a game in
These are good goals in and of themselves. Its their implementation that of these goals that is crappy. Replace Half-Orc with Dragonborn because "orcs suck and dragons are cool" is the only logic I can see. They could take the time to make them worthwhile to play (and dump the whole bit about how they come from rape) but instead just dumped them. They could have built them to be quality rogues saying they have to live by their cunning as well as their strength to survive in a world that hates them.
Replace the Sorcerer with the Warlock and change the Wizard into an Evoker/Illusionist. Sorry but if they wanted to convince the base that they're not trying to make the game into a videogame, this is a bad way of doing it. This more then anything else told me they want the D&DMMORPG more then a pen&paper rpg.
I've never run a FR game but I have run other world where the rest of the group knew more about the world then I did. Much, much more. So I told them before the first session, "All your knowledge won't help you. I'm only using these books and nothing more. Don't even bother asking me about something from any other book; the answer is 'No.'" It's that simple. I mean I know they want to play in cool campaign settings, but I know when not to compete with their knowledge.
Like I said, their stated goals are good. Someone just needs to teach them how to attract newblood and not lose the base.
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Oh I'm quite sure they believe that they're doing right by D&D. But the short of the long is is that they are ignoring the base. The base fans are more valuable then all the advertising in the world. The base fans are will work harder then the best PR campaign at spreading the word of your products.
I am not so sure that they are ignoring their base. They have detailed the ways in which they gathered customer feedback and it seems to me that they covered a large sample of D&D players and GMs.
I have already decided that I won't be taking the next step into 4th edition, after over 2 decades of gaming. Subtle comments here and there by the "higher ups" at Wizards have helped make this decision for me. Things like having the audacity to tell me what DnD is: "D&D is a game about slaying horrible monsters, not a game about traipsing off through fairy rings and interacting with the little people." And more glaring comments about how, aside from card games, the miniatures line is the only line that turns a profit. DnD evolved from a tabletop miniatures wargame into a ROLE-PLAYING GAME. Now, it's obvious it's turning back into a tabletop miniatures wargame again. Earlier statements from the Wizard's Site: "In fact, the minimum amount of space you typically want to have for a standard encounter is one of those large 10-square by 8-square dungeon tiles! That's 50-feet by 40-feet for all you still counting in feet." are just plain depressing. There was a fascinating article in a Polyhedron about dungeon design, and how hard it is for that lich to actually design and build his lair that is now just ignored or tossed out the window. Is Wizards telling us that in our Gnomish Crypt of Ancestors we need to have 2,000 square foot rooms so we can fit every gnomish skeleton at once? How many 2000 square foot rooms would anyone have in a castle, or dungeon or tower? So many articles just plain insult our intelligence. (Now, in 4th edition, the orcs in the next room will hear the combat and investigate!) Brilliant! I never thought of that before! I mean, please! It seems more and more like they want this to be some tabletop computer game - and if you though 3/3.5 encouraged metagaming - you wait!! I, for one, will not be spending another several hundred dollars on a new system, when it seems to exist to kill the storytelling and imagination of the old. And while I describe the dank crypt with my players hanging on my words, you can watch your players counting squares and adding modifiers before you've even finished placing your plastic minis on the map. i've got more than enough adventures left to do with the "old" systems from basic through 3.5, plus Cthulhu, and Alternity and Blue Rose to keep me occupied for practically forever.
WHAT!?
So, for example, I get no leprechaun stats in my D&D because...it's not something to kill. Nevermind the story-element for why I need a clan of leprechauns, nevermind the fact a player might want to play a leprechaun, nevermind the fact a player might want one as a cohort...they just won't be included because it's not a terrifying monster to kill.
The debate on whether or not the unicorn should be Good alignment or not came up at WotC not because they were making unicorns a fey creature and wanted fey to be neutral...they wanted unicorns to be something the PCs can kill and loot.
Anyone else STILL find 4E to be the same game now? Shall I pull out more quotes from this book? How about ones that WotC contradicted themselves on a dozen times? Give me the word, I'm ready to pick this thing apart and eat it whole.
I hear ya Razz. Unbelievable. Who are these designers, and how long have they been holding in this insatiable desire for blood, gore, and phat lewt? Don't they realize there's already a Black Unicorn for them to murderize?
Still very few specific answers on 4e, the game ??????HEROIC 1st level characters.
Different rules for PCs, NPCs, & Monsters.
Mook rules.
Core rulebooks every year.
Consolidated (or is it oversimplified?) skills.
Defenses instead of Saving Throws.
AC instead of DR.
Succubus is now a devil.
Inclusion of Tieflings and Dragon-whatitsname as core races.
All characters must have equal utility/power in combat as a design goal.
Video-gamey "uber-cool" powers. Specifically, I hit someone and my allies heal. WTF?
The Digital Initiative content being "core".
The "reimagined" gnome.
EPIC level play assumes players will take on gods in combat. (Wasn't cool when I was 13, still seems dorky now.)
The extremely weak reinvented Dragon "magazine".
And that's just off the top of my head. Give me time to think about it and I'm sure I can come up with more. This, of course, is excluding the demeaning way that they've been telling us that if we're not salivating about 4e, there must be something wrong with us. Nor does it include the pathetic arguments that 3.5 is "too hard", or overinflating the difficulty of the Grappling rules.
Also, no matter how many times they tell me how cool 4e is and how much I'll love it, they're not going to convince me unless they show me why it's cool. (It'd also be nice if they then explained why they made the mechanics changes. Kinda like they did with 3e...)
Final point - Paizo, Green Ronin, and other companies act as though they want to earn my business and appreciate my support. WotC acts as though I've got no other choices for where my RPG dollar will go. If they say it's time for 4e, well I better get on board or be left behind.
1. Because I know I liked it in The Whispering Cairn when two parties went in and had to leave after the first two encounters. In both cases, we had a party of 5-6.
2. We know that they are building stack blocks differently for PCs and monsters. This does not mean that NPCs will necessarily be grossly different from PCs, but I have to wonder why this is even a big deal: how many NPCs in Burnt Offerings even HAD stat blocks? Do you really care that commoner x has Skill Focus (craft [woodworking])?
3. By mook rules, I take it to mean the fact that encounters are designed so that characters can now handle a 1 on 1 fight, rather than the party surrounding one thing and beating it to death.
4. Yearly core books are supposed to introduce new power sources and keep classes in the various PH series. Makes sense to me.
5. Consolidated skills sounds like a great idea. Now instead of spending precious skill points on two different sensory abilities, I can simply get the +5 to both. See, when I played a ranger, often over half my skill points went to sensory skills as well a sneaky skills. Now I can have some stretching room.
6. AND 7. Saving throws and AC are being turned into Defenses. AC isnt becoming DR, its part of the Ref Defense.
8. Succubus as a devil...whoopie.
9. No one complained when they were "core" in Planescape. No one cared when they were pretty much core in Forgotten Realms. No one cared that tieflings were rampant in Three Faces of Evil. They've been all over the game for years.
10. This is a big one because many people are actually angry that Wizards is giving all the classes nifty combat powers. The problem is that people have the misconception that this is something new. Going WAY back to 2nd Edition, we can clearly see that the fighter had the ability to...woah, hit things. That was ALL they can do, generally barely above the rest of the classes. Now, in 3rd Edition they still have the mighty power to...hit things. Over and over. Sometimes you might try to shake things up with a trip attempt...unless the beastie is bigger than you, in which case it is guaranteed to be pointless. So, now with the advent of 4th Edition, they give the fighter the ability to hit things in somewhat more interesting ways. Oh. My. GOD.
Replace the class fighter with, well, any class that was in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Edition, and I'm sure you will see a theme. Even the BARD has always had the ability to hit things, or make other people hit things BETTER.
I guess the major problem is now half the party wont be standing there as "enablers", in that they just stand around every round watching other people hit things.
Combat is a big part of D&D. It has ALWAYS been this way. Frankly, this is the way it is in MANY RPGs, even White Wolf games.
11. No one seemed to complain about the various hit & heal powers in the Book of Nine Swords.
12. DI content isnt required to play. I have no idea how many times this must be said for it to sink in. its the Extras part of the DVD set, do you get angry at whomever makes movies for putting extra crap on the more expensive two-disc set?
13. We have no clue what the gnome can do at this stage. I guess you will have to wait for an article to pop up, or browse the MM when it comes out.
14. We have no idea how this will function mechanically speaking, so I cant say whether its going to be cool, cool sometimes, or something entirely optional. I dont think that at 21st level everyone will be forced to kill gods, especially not in every campaign.
15. Since the e-zines are free, I wont say anything but that the content hasnt been to great, which is why I'm glad its free. Once money starts getting exchanged, I'm hoping for better stuff, but DDI may be worth it.
13. We have no clue what the gnome can do at this stage. I guess you will have to wait for an article to pop up, or browse the MM when it comes out.
Yes we do. The Gnome goes killed by the tiefling and gets its stuff taken. So that's 2 special abilities 1) dying and 2) stuff taken. Oh wait, don't forget the minion.
I've never seen a 'mook rules' system that enabled a 1vs1 fight. 'Mook rules' usually mean 1vs10 with the character able to take out all 10 bad guys and still have energy/resources for another round of ten. That may sound exciting on the surface. Until you realize you need a ton more minis (and D&D has long made it increasingly hard to play mini-less). And I can't seem to remember all the excitement I had killing 'grays' in WoW/EQ2/CoH/Etc.
I have, likely, well over 1000 minis, and I still end up using pennies and other tokens. Minis are very cheap, but the eternal refute will always be: you dont NEED them to play. Some people will continue to complain that "WotC is making the game more mini-centric!", which is false. Nothing in the rules says you need them.
I used them back in 2nd Edition, I was just glad that they started making official D&D ones in 3rd Edition. I really like them. Some people dont like them. Some people dont want anything to do with them. Whatever gives you the most fun.
If you cant afford them and want them, and that causes you to have mini-hate, well, too bad.
Rules that allow the party to fight more than one person without the party folding in over themselves sounds good to me. I like those scenes in Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Carribean that had them fighting odds that were against them. Much better than watching Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas surround a single orc and beat it to death.
And all jokes aside, the gnome is going to be in the Monster Manual. We just dont know what they did with it.
Let me respond to this list of sarcastic nonsense in that huge list so that I can promptly dispatch all claims of 4th edition being D+D.
1) Yes, Whispering Cairn kills people. That's what dungeons do. If your PC's were properly prepared, with Alchemists Fire and flasks of oil, that encounter was a walk. DEATH IS PART OF D+D, AND AT LOW LEVELS IT IS FREQUENT! I can't stand the idea that the PC's character is so important that he should be immune to death and that every death should mean something. Heck, between Shackled City, Age of Worms, and Savage Tide, that's five years of gaming right there if you do it right.
2)I've run my game for 20 years with no PC tee shirts and no such thing as an NPC. Now you're asking me to accept that PC's are automatically superior because of who they are? I've got a bag of d**k I'd like to serve you.
3)Mook rules boil down to this in D+D. The 1 in 20 rule. 1 in every 20 guys will land a blow, because a 20 always hits. This is reasonable, fair, and amazingly enough, NO ONE has ever complained about it.
4)I loathe the idea of yearly core books except PHBs. I'll take as many players guidebooks as I can get, but the best thing for DMs is to have one Dungeon Master's Guide and that's it. There's always a point of no return where it takes too long to reference things.
5)Consolidated skills, huh? Nature is now a skill. Someone didn't do their homework. Trying to get WOD players to play D+D? You have now failed. Every single one of those people will start to experience confusion, because for 20 years, they've been seeing Nature as a personality choice that defines their character. It was the commonality of language that made 3.5 such a good system, and now Wizards is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
6+7) The elimination of saving throws from the game is b!*@~+~~. I'll say it openly. If I get affected by a magical effect, I want that effect and it's result to be in MY hands, not the hands of someone who can roll a die, overcome my resistance score, and possibly cheat, especially if they're behind a screen when they make the roll. Don't want me to advance in a tournament? Bang! Your resistance score is overcome!
8) Succubus as a Devil? Succubi have been demons for 30 years. So how do we integrate this into existing games without making the cosmos laugh at us forever? It's easy, you can't. Throw your players hard earned RP and work out the door, because Wizards just flipped you the bird.
9) The problem for me isn't Tieflings are a core race. It's what they've done to them in addition to making them a core race. There are FOUR tiefling PC's in my game. Guess how many of them function under the 4e lore for Tieflings? None! All of their backstories explode in horrible puffs of logic because they all have abyssal origins. And some of those characters are 19th-20th level. Thanks, Wizards.
10)You know, you could ROLEPLAY your fighter's flurry of swings instead of just saying "All my fighter can do is hit things..." Wizards are MEANT To have to husband their spells. That's called tactical choice. Why does someone always have to do something every round? That can be a big mistake. Enablers and support characters are part of the game, you don't have to be continuously active to make a difference in combat. The simple truth of the matter is, and this IS an adhominem attack, is that you're a World of Warcraft pansy. You can't stand it when your character isn't doing something every round, but for me, that's the venality of the "Me" generation talking.
11)Well, obviously, you didn't listen to people like me when we said the Book of 9 Swords was the biggest ball of donkey cheese ever to hit the world of Dungeons and Dragons.
I've never seen a 'mook rules' system that enabled a 1vs1 fight. 'Mook rules' usually mean 1vs10 with the character able to take out all 10 bad guys and still have energy/resources for another round of ten. That may sound exciting on the surface. Until you realize you need a ton more minis (and D&D has long made it increasingly hard to play mini-less). And I can't seem to remember all the excitement I had killing 'grays' in WoW/EQ2/CoH/Etc.
You can play with thousands of minis on a virtual table application if you prefer (in face to face games, you just need your computer and an additional screen).
For the battle maps you can use the maps from Paizo PDFs as they are, and the program and minis are free.
Scroll to the bottom to see how to make round tokens or download minis.
Let me respond to this list of sarcastic nonsense in that huge list so that I can promptly dispatch all claims of 4th edition being D+D.
1) Yes, Whispering Cairn kills people. That's what dungeons do. If your PC's were properly prepared, with Alchemists Fire and flasks of oil, that encounter was a walk. DEATH IS PART OF D+D, AND AT LOW LEVELS IT IS FREQUENT! I can't stand the idea that the PC's character is so important that he should be immune to death and that every death should mean something. Heck, between Shackled City, Age of Worms, and Savage Tide, that's five years of gaming right there if you do it right.
2)I've run my game for 20 years with no PC tee shirts and no such thing as an NPC. Now you're asking me to accept that PC's are automatically superior because of who they are? I've got a bag of d**k I'd like to serve you.
3)Mook rules boil down to this in D+D. The 1 in 20 rule. 1 in every 20 guys will land a blow, because a 20 always hits. This is reasonable, fair, and amazingly enough, NO ONE has ever complained about it.
4)I loathe the idea of yearly core books except PHBs. I'll take as many players guidebooks as I can get, but the best thing for DMs is to have one Dungeon Master's Guide and that's it. There's always a point of no return where it takes too long to reference things.
5)Consolidated skills, huh? Nature is now a skill. Someone didn't do their homework. Trying to get WOD players to play D+D? You have now failed. Every single one of those people will start to experience confusion, because for 20 years, they've been seeing Nature as a personality choice that defines their character. It was the commonality of language that made 3.5 such a good system, and now Wizards is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
6+7) The elimination of saving throws from the game is b!#&&##%. I'll say it openly. If I get affected by a magical effect, I want that effect and it's result to be in MY hands, not the hands of someone who can roll a die, overcome my resistance score, and...
1. I understand that an element of danger is essentially mandatory, especially to maintain a sense of fun. I would like to know how your characters afforded alchemist's fire (25 gp a pop) at 1st-level. Moving on, I never said that PCs should be immune to death.
What I said was that they were forced to flee after two encounters, go rest, then run back in the next day. And early on in the campaign, it can happen quite a bit.2. The PCs really should be more important than NPCs because, more or less, the game centers around them. You may run your games differently, but I suspect the majority of D&D games are played with the intent that on some level, the PCs are superior and more important (because, well they are your friends, if they have to follow around some other DMPC hero the entire game, its probably gonna get boring really fast).
There is a reason why PC classes have superior stuff than NPC classes, at all levels.
3. I dont know where you are quoting this "mook rule".
4. We, as of yet, dont know exactly what content will be in additional DMGs. Perhaps rules for other things such as running businesses (ala DMG2).
5. So, because they made a skill that is a term in another game entirely, its automatically a bad thing. Huh. I didnt realize that designers had to now browse every other game out there to ensure they werent overlapping terminology. Do WoD players get confused by English? I mean, honestly, nature has more definitions than one.
6 & 7. When someone tries to cast a spell on another PC in my games, I generally make the roll in secret (so that the player doesnt know something just tried to get him). As for DM cheating, I'm sorry to break this to you, but DMs can cheat in plenty of other ways. If you are worried that your DM is going to hamstring you, you might want to find another group.
8. How is knowing that a succubus is a demon/devil/whatever "hard work and RP"? Is your game going to explode because you know "have" to refer to it by another term? Do you even have to change it if thats really such a huge issue? Probably not, and I suspect that no one will care. Except for you.
I'm sorry, but calling demons/devils by whatever term isnt really on the issue list for me.
9. This is, actually, not a problem (surprise surprise). The tiefling backstory is, thankfully, story (funny how story can just be story). As with several of your other "issues" this can be easily solved with a little thinking. Your tiefling characters can simply retain their abyssal origins by you saying so.
Bear with me here, I know it sounds crazy defying the Allmighty Wizards.
The tiefling backstory is likely going to be a "default" one that exists in the PH just as an example, or for a DM who reads about the generic D&D world and decides to use it. Kind of like how some DMs constrained by time use Dungeon adventures, or Pathfinder.
See, tieflings are supposed to be humans with a trace of some fiendish heritage. Well, in Eberron, they arent. They are humans corrupted by the taint of Khyber. So, in YOUR game, keep them as is. I know that according to Wizards they will have big horns and tails, but MY tieflings in MY Eberron games will have at least two appearances: the default one, and also one that has traits of a rakshasa (since, thats what many Eberron tieflings look like, according to Keith Baker anyway).
10. I'm sorry, but there are only so many different ways I can describe a fighters attack before I'm repeating myself and it spirals down into a "you hit, you deal x damage".
It is NOT a WoW thing to want your character to do something during combat instead of watching everyone else, and wanting to make a difference does not make you a bad role-player. Perhaps, do you, it does, but that only makes it true from your perception, since in your games you seem to have fun standing around for a few rounds until things wrap up.
To tell you the truth, I actually DONT like WoW. I played it when it came out for about a month, on and off, but since all it was was a repetition of kill X mob, collect X thing, etc etc, it got boring pretty quick. It had some okay graphics, I suppose, but didnt really offer anything new to me.
Not wanting, or able to, participate in combat does not make you a better role-player.
11. Actually, I still dont listen to "people like you", since you seem to think that there is only one way to have fun. Book of Nine Swords got a LOT of good responses: you are in the minority on that one.
Splaaaaarrrtch
Splaaaaarrrtch
Well, that should cover up the stench of vitriol.
Splaaaaarrrtch
Ha! I love this guy. Brilliant.
Let me sum up everyone's arguments.
1) I like the changes.
2) I don't like the changes.
3) I am ambivalent to the changes.
4) I use some other system.
At this point it comes down to personal preferences and no-one else is really going to change your mind.
I've never seen a 'mook rules' system that enabled a 1vs1 fight. 'Mook rules' usually mean 1vs10 with the character able to take out all 10 bad guys and still have energy/resources for another round of ten. That may sound exciting on the surface. Until you realize you need a ton more minis (and D&D has long made it increasingly hard to play mini-less). And I can't seem to remember all the excitement I had killing 'grays' in WoW/EQ2/CoH/Etc.You can play with thousands of minis on a virtual table application if you prefer (in face to face games, you just need your computer and an additional screen).
For the battle maps you can use the maps from Paizo PDFs as they are, and the program and minis are free.
Scroll to the bottom to see how to make round tokens or download minis.
That is a neat page there. I bookmarked it to show somebody else later on.
The point I was trying to make was that killing grays is fun for about five minutes. It's not the kind of gaming I'm going to remember a year from now either. "Youknow, my character killed a hundred orcs last night." "So? My character killed a thousand last week."Once the novelty wears off it turns into a grind. Like Dynasty Warriors. Oh, look! Here come another dozen spearmen and archers *yawn*.
Dynasty Warriors even has the advantage of being a video game and you can clean up the bad guys much faster then with dice and pencils.
I have, likely, well over 1000 minis, and I still end up using pennies and other tokens.I do too, and for one simple reason - it's much easier to transport tokens, spare dice, etc. than pieces of plastic or metal (especially if you don't want to damage the paint on the metal or plastic...
No no, I mean D&D Minis. I use them because while I am very good at painting minis, I dont really have the time to paint them anymore. Plus, they are scaled correctly, are more durable, and cheaper.
I tend to use a mini followed up by pennies (this is what the monster looks like, these are all that same monster) since I dont often have a whole bunch of the same monster.
I've never seen a 'mook rules' system that enabled a 1vs1 fight. 'Mook rules' usually mean 1vs10 with the character able to take out all 10 bad guys and still have energy/resources for another round of ten. That may sound exciting on the surface. Until you realize you need a ton more minis (and D&D has long made it increasingly hard to play mini-less). And I can't seem to remember all the excitement I had killing 'grays' in WoW/EQ2/CoH/Etc.You can play with thousands of minis on a virtual table application if you prefer (in face to face games, you just need your computer and an additional screen).
For the battle maps you can use the maps from Paizo PDFs as they are, and the program and minis are free.
Scroll to the bottom to see how to make round tokens or download minis.
That is a neat page there. I bookmarked it to show somebody else later on.
The point I was trying to make was that killing grays is fun for about five minutes. It's not the kind of gaming I'm going to remember a year from now either. "Youknow, my character killed a hundred orcs last night." "So? My character killed a thousand last week."
Once the novelty wears off it turns into a grind. Like Dynasty Warriors. Oh, look! Here come another dozen spearmen and archers *yawn*.
Dynasty Warriors even has the advantage of being a video game and you can clean up the bad guys much faster then with dice and pencils.
Assuming that any encounter will even breach 50 orcs. I somehow doubt that at higher levels you will still be fighting lower-level mooks to the point where you WILL be fending off an army worthy of Mordor.
At this point it comes down to personal preferences and no-one else is really going to change your mind.
*Bumps Nose* DING DING DING DING DING! We have a winner. What do we have for him, Johnny?
(And you will note that it only took us 8 pages to get to that answer.)