Here is a great Blog by Keith Baker
Posted in spoiler for Firewall goodness
I'm still in transit to Alaska (nothing like watching the sun set at 1 AM), but I have internet access, and something came up I wanted to post about. I'll preface this by saying that this isn't supposed to be some sort of great revelation - like my recent skill challenge post, this is just my personal reflections on my 4E experiences. If it's of any use to anyone else, great - if not, hey, it's a blog, for goodness sake. Deal with it. ;-)
Recently I was involved in a discussion about the intended audience of 4E, and what WotC was trying to accomplish with the design. The following point came up:
I suspect the real issue for many people in terms of roleplaying support between 3.5 and 4e is the lack, in 4e, of mechanical definition for non-combat abilities -- craft, profession, perform... and limited multiclassing (making it difficult to define a character with an interesting past reflected in their class levels).
Now, some of these things are simple fact. 4E doesn't have Craft or Profession. This loss takes away an easy hook for character background ("I used to be a bartender, as reflected by my Profession skill."). I've also talked with many people who enjoy the world simulation aspect of Craft - the ability to determine just what their character can accomplish in the week between adventures, and how his work compares to that of the local smiths. Perhaps something will be added in the future, but it's plain and simple fact that it's not there (which I am slightly amused by, since it's somewhat at odds with the statement that 4E is a pen-and-paper MMO... Crafting being an important subsystem of most major MMOs).
Performance isn't a total loss, as there are certain forms of performance that can be represented by other skills. As I mentioned earlier, I ran a skill challenge in which the PCs had to perform an improvised play to gain admittance to a guild enclave. None of them had a Perform skill as such, but they had skills they could justify as being relevant: Bluff for general acting, Diplomacy for that dramatic monologue appealing to the audience, Intimidate for the guy playing the villain, Acrobatics for gymnastics and tumbling, and so on. However, while it's easy enough to say "Bluff is your acting ability", there's no way to represent your skill as a harper. And while a DM might say "You want to be a poet – use your Diplomacy skill for that" presumably not EVERYONE with Diplomacy is a great poet. So certainly, the loss of Craft, Performance, and Profession removes a flavor tool present in 3E.
However, I disagree with the idea that it's mechanically "difficult to define a character with an interesting past" in 4E. It's certainly difficult to do that with CLASS LEVELS, because that's not the mechanic 4E uses for this purpose. Class levels determine your combat abilities, and it's intentionally difficult to dramatically change your combat role. But once you step out of combat, the skill training system makes it easy to develop cross-class skills – and because heroic tier feats have less of an impact on your combat abilities than 3E feats, it's not a major sacrifice to use your feats on noncombat abilities. The amalgamation of skill groups further helps with this. I have a changeling (doppelganger) cleric-thief in one of my games, and while he hasn't actually taken any rogue POWERS, through the use of two feats (Sneak of Shadows to gain Thievery and Skill Training - Stealth) he has gained decent ability in what would have been five skills under 3.5, without any significant sacrifice of his clerical abilities. In 3.5, he'd HAVE to multiclass to get that level of skill, and that would drop his clerical power. He doesn't have the COMBAT power of a rogue - but *out* of combat, he feels like a 3.5 rogue.
But the main point I wanted to address was whether it's possible to "define a character with an interesting past". The changeling cleric is one example. His idea was that while raised in the church, he was faced with corruption in the ranks - and that now, as a pilgrim, he seeks to understand these darker aspects of human nature so that when he returns he will be better equipped to face it. He began with Skill Focus (Stealth), as this was tied to how he'd discovered the corruption to begin with; at second level he took Sneak of Shadows, reflecting his deeper study of these arts. Again, he doesn't FIGHT like a rogue - but his noncombat abilities directly reflect his past and evolving story.
Just to continue to ramble at great, unnecessary length, let me go ahead and present two additional characters. Both are first level human fighters, and both have 18 Strength; I want to develop an interesting backstory, but I'm not going to sacrifice my primary stat to get it.
LUCAS grew up on a farm; he became an adventurer after his village was destroyed by the soldiers of a cruel overlord. He's not terribly bright or well educated, but he's got a good heart, a lot of common sense, and a good sense of people. His experience with animal husbandry has taught him how to heal, though his friends might be disturbed when they hear him talk about birthing foals while patching their wounds. His combat skills come both from his brute strength – built up by his time laboring on the farm – and from time spent hunting with his spear in the woods.
LUCAS
Str 18, Con 14, Dex 13, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 10
Feats: Skill Focus (Insight), Warrior of the Wild
Skills: Athletics +9, Endurance +7, Heal +7, Insight +10 (racial skill training), Nature +7 (from Warrior of the Wild)
There's lots of other ways I could have gone here. Obviously I could switch that Skill Focus to play to the element of my background I want to be the strongest; I went for Insight because it's going to allow me to contribute to social situations (I'm not intimidating or diplomatic, but my common-sense, folksy insights often help out). If I traded Nature for Perception and Insight for Stealth, I've got more of the spear-hunter – I don't fight like a ranger, but with a +9 Stealth (assuming scale armor), I'm capable of sneaking around alongside ranger or rogue. Now what Lucas DOES lack is Profession (Farmer). However, it's my past as a farmer that justifies my Nature and Heal skills – and it's something that I can roleplay to during skill challenges involving them. And if it actually came to, say, identifying farming equipment, as a DM I'd likely just give this to Lucas for free because it obviously fits his background.
Taking another path, we've got GRIM. He was born in a back alley in the big city, and his sheer strength and force of will was the only reason he survived. He began as a bouncer in a bar, and then became an enforcer for a local crime boss; unfortunately, a feud with a rival gang went against his side, and he's been forced to flee the city and take up a life of adventure. His notable trait is the one he takes is name from – his intimidating demeanor. But he also knows his way around the streets.
GRIM
Str 18, Con 14, Dex 10, Int 8, Wis 13, Cha 14
Feats: Skill Focus (Intimidate), Skill Focus (Streetwise)
Skills: Athletics +9, Endurance +7, Intimidate +10, Streetwise +10 (racial skill)
Because of the nature of skill challenges, Grim's still going to be useful even if you have a rogue or warlock who's focused on the social skills; since it's not just a single-check resolution, if a challenge calls for Streetwise, the more skilled characters the better.
Now, you could say "You CAN make these characters, but would you? I'd take Con 16 (with the subsequent drop in other scores), Toughness and Weapon Focus." Personally, I'd take either of these characters over the Toughness-Weapon Focus route, both because they have more flavor and because in the campaigns I'm in, the +10 Streetwise will be much more useful than five more hit points. If your DM actually uses skill challenges in a significant role, the +3 bonus from Skill Focus is far more significant than the +1 damage from Weapon Focus. I'm playing a paladin in one of my campaigns, and as of fourth level, I've used every feat on enhancing and expanding my skill selection, and my utility power is Astral Voice – improving my *Diplomacy*, not my combat ability.
So, these characters DON'T have Profession skills. And I can't give them Craft skills - and I know that there are people for whom that's a severe loss. However, both do have mechanical abilities that reflect their diverse backgrounds, and they're just two examples of what you can do. I've seen a lot of posts saying that 4E characters are inherently cookie-cutter images of one another, that the game is simply a tactical wargame; my point is that it IS possible to develop characters whose game abilities reflect their past and play a role in their present.
But again, that's just me rambling. ;-)
Interesting read. It's given me things to think about. I am still trying to "get into 4E" but I just haven't gotten there yet.
I'm reading through the PHB trying to see what a friend of mine sees. So far I'm still seeing the cookie cutter tactical wargame thing. I don't care for battlemats and excessive miniature purchases. We tend to play in an apartment and don't have room for a big table that would require.
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It would be a real treat to see some adventures published by WoC where you can actually survive with a character like Keith plays.
So far in Shadowfell you are far better of with the cookie cutter encounter optimized fighter.
KotS is specifically designed as a dungeon crawl, so this should come as no surprise.
Keith's article gave me some good ideas for running less-combat focused encounters and campaigns.
Interesting read. It's given me things to think about. I am still trying to "get into 4E" but I just haven't gotten there yet.
I'm reading through the PHB trying to see what a friend of mine sees. So far I'm still seeing the cookie cutter tactical wargame thing. I don't care for battlemats and excessive miniature purchases. We tend to play in an apartment and don't have room for a big table that would require.
I do not have an extensive mini collection and I find 4e works well with paper tokens. I live in a town house with a 4 person table. Its not too cramped with 6 people playing, when we setup a card table for additonal space.
Kots has some paper tokens put out for it by Fiery Dragon. Wonderful stuff
Interesting that this 'article on character depth' doesn't really show much character depth... Also telling is that both the examples have INT as a tremendous dump-stat. (Remember, an INT of eight roughly translates to 'mild overall disability'.) Yes, both the characters are notably stupid.
I do not know if an eight translates to the same thin in the new edition as the bonuses are done differently.
Aslo, I am not saying its the greatest article on character depth, but it is a good read. Not bad for a lay over on a road trip to Alaska.
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mild in the way of "probably wouldn't qualify you for disability payments, nor interfer with your ability to have a full productive and loving life"
chances are due to the way the iq test bar has to keep being set higher, as kids are better educated then they used to be, your folks have 80 iq.
You my friend are exagerating and looking to b&%!*, go right ahead. Its just another strike against paizo in my book.
Logos
Was this meant in jest? Because I have great difficulty understanding how a sane and intelligent person is holding a company responsible for the actions of fans on its boards? BTW, your argument is pure bunk, as vance's post references the RAW and draws a conclusion SUPPORTED BY THE RULES. YOU my friend chose to interpret the RAW in a way favorable to your opinion and then used this essentially non-official, personal preference as grounds for an attack against Paizo and by inference, vance?
Yeah that makes a ton of sense. Thank you for improving the quality of discussion on this site. Whatever would we do without insightful commentary like this?
kids are better educated then they used to be, your folks have 80 iq.
A couple of points here:
1) Seriously?!? A direct personal attack against a poster AND the poster's parents? Is this really how you need to make a (completely of topic) point?2) As someone who teaches 18 yo "better educated" products of modern education, I can tell you that you are sadly mistaken. A larger number of our kids are unable to think their way out of a wet paper sack ... a direct result of rote learning from an educational system that has been shackled against actually teaching.
You my friend are exagerating and looking to b##&~, go right ahead. Its just another strike against paizo in my book.
Logos
You may want to look up the meaning of your screenname in terms of rhetorical strategy before tossing slander against a company and its subscribers.
(I apologize that I used personal attacks to point out unwarranted personal attacks. It must have been my Pathos getting the better of me)
Interesting that this 'article on character depth' doesn't really show much character depth... Also telling is that both the examples have INT as a tremendous dump-stat. (Remember, an INT of eight roughly translates to 'mild overall disability'.) Yes, both the characters are notably stupid.
After re-reading the article I think that this is more of a demonstration on how you can get two varying different stories with a similar set of stats. ( and by this I do not mean each stat in the same ability score)
Also telling is that both the examples have INT as a tremendous dump-stat. (Remember, an INT of eight roughly translates to 'mild overall disability'.) Yes, both the characters are notably stupid.
I'm going to have to agree here. I strongly doubt *brute strength and force of will* would make up for Grim's lack of thinky bits when it comes to surviving on the streets. As a kid, the guy would have been robbed blind by the other street rats who would have been smart enough to get together to use pack tactics to get his stuff ... thus leaving poor Grim starving to death, locked up in a jail cell, or without one or both of his hands from trying to ineptly steal from smarter people ... like successful merchants.
After re-reading the article I think that this is more of a demonstration on how you can get two varying different stories with a similar set of stats. ( and by this I do not mean each stat in the same ability score)
I can also agree here. I was noticing how two different characters can come from these similar stats. I think I just have an aversion to INT as a dump stat.
Just my preference there :-)
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I think I just have an aversion to INT as a dump stat. Just my preference there :-)
Me too; I hardly ever choose to do it, except for NPCs.
The trouble is, those players who do so, to get a mechanical boost to a physical stat, but won't then accept that their PC is in any way hindered. They take part in tactical planning meetings using their college-level knowledge of science, or their metagame knowledge of other class' abilities. That's always an eyebrow raiser, when the dumb brute is telling the wizard how to combine his spell effects.
I think I just have an aversion to INT as a dump stat. Just my preference there :-)Me too; I hardly ever choose to do it, except for NPCs.
The trouble is, those players who do so, to get a mechanical boost to a physical stat, but won't then accept that their PC is in any way hindered. They take part in tactical planning meetings using their college-level knowledge of science, or their metagame knowledge of other class' abilities. That's always an eyebrow raiser, when the dumb brute is telling the wizard how to combine his spell effects.
I will admit to my favorite Pc from Second Edition being a paladin with a 5 Int. I remember with great hilarity as he taught the rest of the party to speak elven...... over the course of 2 years as they travelled together.
Seems to me that your player didn't have an Int much higher than his character's... ;)
He just couldn't understand that the choices he made for his character build ALSO applied outside of combat (a problem I see quite heavily in 4E, were non-combat encounters in the RAW is not even thought of as POSSIBLE). He quit the group completely that night, sadly... but I can't say I regretted his leaving.
I respectfully disagree with you here Vance, and this may be heavily influenced by my style of dming and the people that I play with. We spend an equal amount of role-playing (even when people dont bring the whips and chains to the game table j/k) in my group as we do in combat.
Ive always played for the story as a writer, and enjoy the nifty things I could do as the side dishes. I've min-maxed and optimized before and it fell short when it came role-playing and I didnt like that.
Sure, being a House D'Orien Scion Nightcrawler with (Crystal Skull) Indiana jones written all over him was fun in combat, but it was the snazzy lines and role-playing that made him memorable in my mind.
So.. the fact that he rolled up some fighters with interesting skills is meaningless because the int bonus is 1 short of your personal preference?
That does seem like nit picking. Or at least missing the point. Especially since you could raise the int and only effect the skills mildly.
I'm going to have to agree here. I strongly doubt *brute strength and force of will* would make up for Grim's lack of thinky bits when it comes to surviving on the streets. As a kid, the guy would have been robbed blind by the other street rats who would have been smart enough to get together to use pack tactics to get his stuff ... thus leaving poor Grim starving to death, locked up in a jail cell, or without one or both of his hands from trying to ineptly steal from smarter people ... like successful merchants.
I would disagree...being an intelligent person doesn't mean you would be able to survive on the streets.
Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons.
Wisdom describes a character’s willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition. While Intelligence represents one’s ability to analyze information, Wisdom represents being in tune with and aware of one’s surroundings.
As a matter of fact, I would think that a PC with a low wisdom but high intelligence would have a much harder time of it in that situation then a PC with high wisdom and low intelligence.
Oh, the problem isn't min-maxing in and of itself. The problem is assuming that the 'minning' part will never come up, and could be ignored. He built his character solely for combat encounters, and expected to 'handwave' anything outside of it. He wasn't role-playing a character.. he was trying to 'win'.
What bugged me about the article is that a lot of stats, skills, etc, were rattled off without much thought put into what they meant. An INT of 8 isn't just a 'modifier' on some die rolls, but a defining attribute of your character. You're about 3 points less intelligent than the average man. To me, this is significant. Yet, nowhere does this even come up in the 'design' aspect of the characters.
It's that part that irks me about 4E. If it's not 'combat encounter', it really is handwaved. The article, while not intending to, obviously, actually succeeds in proving the point.
I am not sure how this article proves anything about the supposed 'hand-waving' of non combat encounters. And I am really not sure how you can make statements about the thoughts that may (or may not) have gone into the character. For all we know, the intelligence score Keith associated witht he 2 characters was completely on purpose and part of his imagining of the characters.
Hopefully I won't raise the ire of any street urchins or farm-hands out there, but I find it completely believable that this characters, given their backstories provided, would have a slightly lower intelligence, but an above average wisdom.
As for the non-combat encounters and hand waving. Again, I fail to see how 4e's handling of non-combat is considered hand-waving. They gave us a way to determine our own rolls, DCs, etc when there is no hard and fast rule covering a given situation. Isn't this better then giving us a hard and fast rule for everything under the sun?
Look at Diplomacy. Under 3.5, a PC with a high enough Diplomacy (with skill, stat bonus, magic bonuses, etc.) could win over anyone, even someone who hated them with all their might. In 4e, they leave the DC to the DM. Good for the DM, bad for the rules lawyers.
So.. the fact that he rolled up some fighters with interesting skills is meaningless because the int bonus is 1 short of your personal preference?No, the fact that the 'crunch' and 'fluff' do not actually sync all that well is what I have an issue with. The characters are NOTABLY STUPID, but are given backstories which conflict with this fact.
Could you please point out how the backstories conflict with the fact that they have a low intelligence?
(emphasis added below is mine)
Lucas: He's not terribly bright or well educated, but he's got a good heart, a lot of common sense, and a good sense of people.
Grim: He was born in a back alley in the big city, and his sheer strength and force of will was the only reason he survived.
Maybe it's my low intelligence (and unfortunate lack of wisdom :) ), but the fluff seems to match the crunch here.
I will try to get back to the OP comment and the article. I wish 4e had kept the craft/profession skills and balanced them with the other skills. I like how they used Rituals to seperate non-combat spells from combat spells. (Are they still spells or are they powers?) I think they should have done something similar with Craft/Profession skills. Now that I think if it, they did the same with Feats and Utility Feats. They seem to have seperated combat things and non-combat things. But with skills they dropped the idea. I personally don't use craft/profession much, but they are not without merit.
EDIT: Maybe they did a survey and found that craft/profession was only used by a vocal minority?
Could you please point out how the backstories conflict with the fact that they have a low intelligence?(emphasis added below is mine)
Lucas: He's not terribly bright or well educated, but he's got a good heart, a lot of common sense, and a good sense of people.
Grim: He was born in a back alley in the big city, and his sheer strength and force of will was the only reason he survived.
Lucas: a person with a 10 CHA and an 8 INT will not have a "good sense of people". A 10 CHA has a marginal sense of self ... not to mention the fact that a person whose "friends might be disturbed when they hear him talk about birthing foals while patching their wounds" obviously does not have a sense of people
Grim: you may survive a goblin or orc encampment as a child with "sheer strength and force of will", but in the streets of a city, a child could only survive by being smart and fast enough to take what they need and smart and fast enough not to get caught by the offended party or the cops. A 10 DEX and an 8 INT would not do this. (Also, Grim's 14 CHA would actually make him a little more likeable than ... well, grim.)
Now I don't see these as being deal-breakers in terms of the character backstory, but using the examples as a way to make up for the absence of certain skills in the core of the system (skills are a learned thing ... learning being INT-based) is problematic at best ... poor rhetoric at worst.
Maybe it's my low intelligence (and unfortunate lack of wisdom :) ), but the fluff seems to match the crunch here.Because the '8' is below 'not terribly bright' and venturing into the 'idiot' level. It's a more substantial chunk here.
It's the problem with grade inflation, I tell you. :P
Since INT is how well you learn and reason in D&D I don't think extrapolates into real world terms so directly. I do not think either of the characters will be great thinkers but at only 2 points lower than average I do not think he is "stupid". For the first example he could simply take a long time to process things. As far his ability to understand people, it is tied to his insight, which is a direct achievement beyond his ability scores.
Since INT is how well you learn and reason in D&D I don't think extrapolates into real world terms so directly. I do not think either of the characters will be great thinkers but at only 2 points lower than average I do not think he is "stupid".Two (and a half) points LESS than an average man. And, keep in mind, you (as a gamer) are not likely to be hanging around too many 'average' people out there. Yeah, it's pretty stupid, really - the guys who can only manage a 'D' average in high school, with the occaisional 'C', in the regular class run. That's what we're talking about here.
They're not hopeless, but they're NOT going to be 'live by their wits' characters, as described. If you live by your wits without HAVING any wits, you die.
That may have cleared up my confusion. I thought you were implying mental retardation or the like.
(Or, better yet, most of Onyx's henchmen in Star Trek's "A Piece of the Action", particularly the ones Kirk snookers with a fake card game).
A fake card game called Fizban .... ;-)
Lucas: a person with a 10 CHA and an 8 INT will not have a "good sense of people". A 10 CHA has a marginal sense of self ... not to mention the fact that a person whose "friends might be disturbed when they hear him talk about birthing foals while patching their wounds" obviously does not have a sense of people
Good sense of self or others comes from wisdom and not from Int or Cha. Cha means how courteous you are to others and it is mainly an intraction skill and Int goes along with stupidity and the difference is that a stupid person won't find the solution quickly while a wise person has learned from his mistakes.
Grim: you may survive a goblin or orc encampment as a child with "sheer strength and force of will", but in the streets of a city, a child could only survive by being smart and fast enough to take what they need and smart and fast enough not to get caught by the offended party or the cops. A 10 DEX and an 8 INT would not do this. (Also, Grim's 14 CHA would actually make him a little more likeable than ... well, grim.)
The backstory for Grim is that he was a thug literaly. I don't see the problem with DEX and INT. To bully someone you certainly don't need to be bright.
Now I don't see these as being deal-breakers in terms of the character backstory, but using the examples as a way to make up for the absence of certain skills in the core of the system (skills are a learned thing ... learning being INT-based) is problematic at best ... poor rhetoric at worst.
Last but not least. Skills are not a learned thing. To be good in acrobatics you do not need INT. The same applies to others like Endurance and Intimidate. Except the Knowledge skills I don't see a skill that uses INT (perhaps Thievery).
Good sense of self or others comes from wisdom and not from Int or Cha. Cha means how courteous you are to others and it is mainly an intraction skill and Int goes along with stupidity and the difference is that a stupid person won't find the solution quickly while a wise person has learned from his mistakes.
Wisdom is willpower, common sense, and awareness of surroundings. Charisma is NOT how courteous you are (courtesy is a trained sense of etiquette); Charisma is strenth of personality, awareness of self, and ability to interact with others. Intelligence encompasses understanding of the world around you, the ability to figure things out, and logical reasoning.
The backstory for Grim is that he was a thug literaly. I don't see the problem with DEX and INT. To bully someone you certainly don't need to be bright.
As far as Grim being a thug, you missed the entire point that he GREW UP on the streets; that means little child (no matter how strong) who would be no match for any adult if he couldn't even figure out how to get food. He would not have GROWN UP to become a thug if he couldn't outsmart the other street survivors.
Last but not least. Skills are not a learned thing. To be good in acrobatics you do not need INT. The same applies to others like Endurance and Intimidate. Except the Knowledge skills I don't see a skill that uses INT (perhaps Thievery).
If you believe that Skills are not learned, ask any gymnast how much learning it took for them to master their skills. The link between skills and INT has nothing to do with whether or not it is the baseline ability used to determine a roll. It has to do with the individual's brain is developed enough to remember multiple groups of information. A stupid individual cannot learn a whole bunch of things.
We are talking about *depth of character*, not rules crunching and how abilities tie into the rules. It's how the abilities tie into who the individual is.
And so the nits were picked long into the night.
And so the nits were picked long into the night.
Well, the nits are nice and crunchy ... AND they're full of wonderful protein. It takes mad skills to pick the right nits.
(btw ... love the icon. Kobolds rock!!)
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That's always an eyebrow raiser, when the dumb brute is telling the wizard how to combine his spell effects.Reminds me of a game I ran in college, where a guy wanted to build his 'optimum thief'. He dumped INT all the way, so he could max out his DEX. The character, by the numbers, was literally not much better than animal intelligence.
In one encounter, he tried to seduce a barmaid to get information. "Are you really sure you want to do this?" I asked... but he pressed on, using his non-existant intelligence and barely existant CHA. Naturally, he failed utterly, and got incensed and demanded to know why.
"Dude, your character has an intelligence of a small child that's been hit in the head repeatedly with a baseball bat. He has a charsima of someone who, as a small child, was hit in the head repeatedly with a baseball bat. I warned you, you were NEVER going to pull this off."
He just couldn't understand that the choices he made for his character build ALSO applied outside of combat (a problem I see quite heavily in 4E, were non-combat encounters in the RAW is not even thought of as POSSIBLE). He quit the group completely that night, sadly... but I can't say I regretted his leaving.
Completely agree with you - it sucks when players intentionally ignore, circumvent, or even downright go against their abilities. It is more forgiveable when they just forget.
By the same token, it is tremendous when they DO roleplay them. I have one player in my current game with a character with Int 3. He keeps no campaign notes, reads no campaign material, and only breaks out his character backstory when I need some information for myself. He literally and intentionally forgot both his hometown and the city where he trained in a monastary. The character isn't gullible - a decent Wisdom ensures he picks up on most sinister behaviour, but can't prove anything. But that said, like Keith's characters, his low Int prevents him from things like:
- remembering who the bad guys are
- doing anything remotely tactical in combat
- catching someone in a lie
- knowing that someone is presenting him with falsehoods
Those kinds of problems would be death on the streets.
I do not have an extensive mini collection and I find 4e works well with paper tokens. I live in a town house with a 4 person table. Its not too cramped with 6 people playing, when we setup a card table for additonal space.
Kots has some paper tokens put out for it by Fiery Dragon. Wonderful stuff
Kots? Fiery Dragon? do you have a link?
Part of my thing too is, I mean I like miniatures, but I don't care about extensive use of them. I kind of see the whole battlemat thing as often being a chore and I'm all for tactics, but I don't understand the need for exact measurements all the time.
Just for the record, Wis is the basis for Sense Motive, so a character can have "a good sense of people" without a high Int or Cha.
(I apologize that I used personal attacks to point out unwarranted personal attacks. It must have been my Pathos getting the better of me)
Perhaps we all need to revisit our Ethos now and again.
OTOH, as for today's education in the States, I would to see the average high schooler attempt a little Ars Praedicandi today. Without using txt shortcuts, that is.
I do not have an extensive mini collection and I find 4e works well with paper tokens. I live in a town house with a 4 person table. Its not too cramped with 6 people playing, when we setup a card table for additonal space.
Kots has some paper tokens put out for it by Fiery Dragon. Wonderful stuff
Kots? Fiery Dragon? do you have a link?
Part of my thing too is, I mean I like miniatures, but I don't care about extensive use of them. I kind of see the whole battlemat thing as often being a chore and I'm all for tactics, but I don't understand the need for exact measurements all the time.
KotS is Keep on the Shadowfell, the First 4e Adventure form Wizards. (Just stating because of your question mark to cover the bases)
The link. Cheap Plastic mini bases make this easy to move around.. or even cardboard.
Keep comes with 4 battle maps relevant to the adventure as well.
KotS is Keep on the Shadowfell, the First 4e Adventure form Wizards. (Just stating because of your question mark to cover the bases)
The link. Cheap Plastic mini bases make this easy to move around.. or even cardboard.
Keep comes with 4 battle maps relevant to the adventure as well.
ah very cool
Yeah I should have realized what that meant. I havent purchased that module yet.is it recommended?
I havent purchased that module yet.
is it recommended?Really hard to recommend if you've already got the PHB and all that. The module itself is passable, but really just a series of map-based encounters. (First edition meets Hero Quest). Much of the module's price tag and worth come from the 'preview rules' included.
I concur with vance here. I thought the module was kinda worth its price when it was a preview taste of the new ruleset, but it doesn't have a whole lot going for it other than that preview. It's a by-the-numbers tour of a string of combat challenges. I do find that the three double-sided maps are nice, but not nice enough to carry the module as a whole.
The physical production quality is the lowest I have ever seen (with the exception of some 1980s era third party D&D stuff). The paper is thinner than magazine paper and the ink sticks to fingers, producing fingermarks and smudges on the paper seconds after handling them.
What passes for character depth these days amazes me...
Indeed. Perhaps you should post some examples of real character depth, you know, just to show what could be done in the days of yore.
I concur with vance here. I thought the module was kinda worth its price when it was a preview taste of the new ruleset, but it doesn't have a whole lot going for it other than that preview. It's a by-the-numbers tour of a string of combat challenges. I do find that the three double-sided maps are nice, but not nice enough to carry the module as a whole.I havent purchased that module yet.
is it recommended?Really hard to recommend if you've already got the PHB and all that. The module itself is passable, but really just a series of map-based encounters. (First edition meets Hero Quest). Much of the module's price tag and worth come from the 'preview rules' included.
The maps are a very nice touch I thought. I'm hopeful the rest of the series carries that trend forward. My drawing ability is embarrassingly bad, so if it keeps my players from making fun of the squiggly lines I call "trees" it makes me happy. :)