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Well I finally have lost my mind. I found a set of the three core books on sale and I am going to give 4e a try. I don't know who I will play with as my gaming group are all 3.5 die hards.
I'm glad you bought the books. I'm sure you'll enjoy the game, especially when you see how easy it is to learn and play. Read through the Player's Handbook to learn the rules. Then, offer to run friends through the "Kobold Hall" adventure at the back of the Dungeon Master's Guide.
Bug us with questions, and let us know how things go.
Will I get hopelessly confused?
In many ways, the 4e rules are a thing of beauty. Quite a few posters have said they memorized all the rules within a couple of gaming sessions. This is in brutal contrast with 3.5 which, though I still prefer the system, is certainly too complex -- the fact that the Rules Compendium is so useful demonstrates that.
IMO you should find 4e easy to learn and remember.
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Will I get hopelessly confused, or will I be able to keep both game systems separate in my mind.
You'll easily keep both rules systems separate. Fourth Edition is so radically different from 3.x that keeping them straight is easy. Some 3.x ideas still creep into our games, small things, though. For example, there is no such thing as being flat-footed anymore. The charge action is different (better). And, we still occasionally say attack of opportunity, rather than opportunity attack.
The D&D Insider's Character Builder is an awesome way to create new characters. It creates power cards as well as a character sheet. You might not be ready to take that plunge, yet. But, it's a great resource, as is the D&D Compendium.
If the usual crowd you game with does not want to try it, check your local hobby and game store. I imagine you'll run into some folks there that play D&D 4th Edition. They may even be offering Living Forgotten Realms of D&D Delve Night.
If you can't find anyone to play with in-person, there are a zillion sites that people use to start online games. I'm currently running a 4e play-by-post adventure at Giant in the Playground.
TS
We do not want to switch yet I was intrigued so bought the books.The good thing is that you don't need to switch!
I play both 3.5 and 4th and will also play PFRPG next year.
I think I transcended the edition conflict and now am deeply in love with D&D in all it's editions and D20 variants. :-)
Exactly the point, try to enjoy both games. The group I Roleplay with is mostly die hard 3.5(now Pathfinder) players\DMs and we enjoy the games but I have been running a 4th edition campaign alongside. I am generally tweaking 4E to give me what I like from 3rd ed but I enjoy both systems.
At the end of the day it's about portaying a character, writing a freeflowing story and having some fun. The chances are the other guys will continue PF campaigns and I'll do more 4E but we'll see.
I think if you and your group are open-minded and give it a fair try, you will like 4E. More than 3.x? That I can't guarantee. But the new rules are simple and user-friendly.
I have been running a 4E game since June, and I love it. I know there are some subtle things from 3.x that I miss at times, but 4E is so... well, everything I said above. I do not wish to go back to running 3.x, though I'd happily play it.
I do not wish to go back to running 3.x, though I'd happily play it.Other way round with me. I happily play 4th but don't want to run it as DM. 3.5 is still my game of choice as DM.
I'm still not set either way as yet. I think I prefer DMing 4th Ed to 3.X and see a potential for longevity of campaigns. I still enjoy playing in 3.X but get annoyed with some of the rules.
I'm still DMing 3.5 but I have to say that when I finish this campaign off I expect to never DM in 3.5 again. My players are going through Maure Castle and its great but to adapt it to my Homebrew I went ahead and changed the Seekers to a cult with all sorts of different classed characters, most of which have an oriental theme and its proven to be rather frustrating on a number of levels.
#1 My prep time is insane. Statting up dozens of NPCs takes a long time.
#2 My prep time is very often longer then the 'on stage' time of the NPC. For example I spent over an hour statting up a 10th level scout NPC cultist, most of that in picking out his gear and choosing feats. On round one of the combat the Sorcerer player beats the Scout in initiative and uses phantasmal killer. Two failed saves later the scout is dead. The piece was on the map for maybe 4 minutes and never did a single thing. I'm frustrated that I spent over an hour working on the guy.
#3 At high level the game is to lethal to quickly. heightened phantasmal killer works both ways for example. However there are simply tons of stuff thats very close to insta kill. I killed the party Ninja last session in the same combat as the scout died with a 13th level Wilder/Anarchic Initiate using an overchanneled Energy Missile that did 17d6+34 cold damage with a DC 24 reflex save for 1/2. Well if you blow that save your taking an average of 94 points of damage - thats the kind of damage that pretty much smokes players that are nearly full strength.
In my opinion if your not doing that much in terms of modifications and running good store bought 3.5 adventures its a pretty good system but the more you want to modify the material, especially at higher levels, the more the cracks in the system manifest themselves.
Jeremey sums up my thoughts perfectly.
I love both editions. But making my own 3.5 campaign is far too daunting compared to how easy it is in 4e. I'll play either, happily, but unless I'm running a published module I think I'm done DMing 3.5.
Hiya.
Now I don't play 3e or 4e (or 2e...old 1e fan here)...but for those who seem to go on about 3.5e, one thing I've noticed about it (yes, I *did* play it for about 2.5 years as the DM at the time loved the game and was pretty much unwilling to really give anything else a try).
The thing with 3e is this: us the PHB, DMG, MM1...period. Done. End of Line. As soon as you start tossing in more prestige classes, special feats, races and all the other one-upmanship'ed stuff that came out after, you *will* see the system start to crack. At some point, it shatters into a million pieces and the only thing you can do is sweep up the mess, toss it in the garbage, and start again with just the PHB, DMG and MM1. That's how it's designed. Probably not on purpose, but when you have "professional writers" who've only been RPG'ing for 5 years...theres just no way in hell they are going to have the wisdom to look at what they are writing and make reasonable assumptions of how it will affect the overall campaign of someone using it. Sorry, but when I see a name listed on a book that gives a ton of new feats, spells, classes and races...and that persons bio says "have been into RPG's since 2002" I just shake my head. There are exceptions, of course, but most of the time, these "young'ens" are just, well, not experienced enough for rules writing. IMHO, of course. :)
Other way round with me. I happily play 4th but don't want to run it as DM. 3.5 is still my game of choice as DM.
I'm still not set either way as yet. I think I prefer DMing 4th Ed to 3.X and see a potential for longevity of campaigns...
3.5 is our ruleset of choice, too, but I think ProsSteve touched on 3.5's biggest failing -- the rules at high level are a bit fragile at best, and maybe irreparably broken (depending upon who you ask).
4e permits stable play at high levels, simply because it keeps the power curve very shallow -- almost flat. There's no such thing as a 10d6 attack in 4e, for example.
Hiya.
The thing with 3e is this: us the PHB, DMG, MM1...period. Done. End of Line. As soon as you start tossing in more prestige classes, special feats, races and all the other one-upmanship'ed stuff that came out after, you *will* see the system start to crack. At some point, it shatters into a million pieces and the only thing you can do is sweep up the mess, toss it in the garbage, and start again with just the PHB, DMG and MM1.
I just don't find this to be some kind of universal truth. All the splat books can certainly open up some pretty broken stuff but in many ways my experience has been that the core books are just as broken - though some what in different ways.
Mostly the splat books break things by allowing players to cherry pick to phenomenally enhance some aspect of their character. That can certainly lead to some broken characters.
However the core books are chalk full of stuff thats pretty busted in its own right. Its just overflowing with various kinds of save or die effects or even some really nasty, no save and your nerfed effects. Two magic items that I have a real problem with, for example, are in the DMG. Candle of invocation[/i[ allows a party to summon a Solar and its only about 8,000 gp. Easily within the price range of a party of around 6th level that splits the cost. Now if they ever get concerned that they might be in real danger they bring in their Solar and they win. They could probably pretty easily go through an entire AP doing nothing but calling in a Solar every time they bumped into the BBEG and not have really spent that much money on such Candles.
[i]Dust of Sneezing and Chocking is even worse. Its an automatic kill on anything that happens to breath. Want to slay the colossal dragon? Well this will make that a piece of cake.
My experience with the splat books versus just core is that the splat books are a double edged sword. They include stuff that allow players to make their characters even more powerful, on the other hand they include many things that counter some of the most powerful stuff a character can do. Third Eye Freedom from the Magic Item Compendium is a very useful item to me as a DM as it counters the players favourite tactic of using solid fog. The Anklet of Translocation counters the worst of things like grapple builds.
Maybe the biggest reason I think the Splat books are good (at least some of them) is that they help with balancing some of the classes. The Wizard is just better then the sorcerer in the core rules once one moves past a certain level because the wizard eventually gets enough spells that the sorcerers advantage of having more spells becomes nearly irrelevant. Neither caster can reasonably use all their spells in a day past a certain level so the sorcerer essentially starts having more of whats pretty much an infinite resource. Swift and Instant spells help the Sorcerer keep that edge by allowing her to burn through spells faster.
Feats are another big problem with just core. The fighters advantage of having lots of feats is not much of an advantage if you have no good feats to choose from. Splat books resolve that problem by upping the number of desired feats to the point where even the fighter will always be making tough choices between desired feats.
Hence I feel that the extra splat books add as much as they take away and also that the core books are in fact some of the most unbalanced ones around.
Mostly the splat books break things by allowing players to cherry pick to phenomenally enhance some aspect of their character. That can certainly lead to some broken characters.However the core books are chalk full of stuff thats pretty busted in its own right. Its just overflowing with various kinds of save or die effects or even some really nasty, no save and your nerfed effects.
Y'see, this is something I don't consider "broken". IMHO, there *should* be things in a game that are 'save or die'. Hell, there should be things in the game that are 'you die'. Of course, it's all in commonality and how they are stumbled upon that make the real difference. I would say this is a personal preference and not a "broken rule" thing.
Two magic items that I have a real problem with, for example, are in the DMG. Candle of Invocation allows a party to summon a Solar and its only about 8,000 gp. (and)
Dust of Sneezing and Chocking is even worse. Its an automatic kill on anything that happens to breath. Want to slay the colossal dragon? Well this will make that a piece of cake.
This I can agree with...but for a different, more base reason. It's not that the items are 'bad', it's that the system allowed/encouraged players to buy magic items down at the local magic-item-shoppe. That's where the problem is...characters should *NOT* be allowed to just buy whatever they can afford. The ease at which magic items are created in 3e is the problem...not the magic items that can be created. That's the broken rule; unbridled magic item creation and purchase. Even if these were limited in a GM's campaign, the RAW is what the players are going to be going by. And, like so-o-o many other problems in 3e, WotC took too much power/expectation out of the hands of the GM and put it into the hands of the players. Thus, as play goes on, the GM looses more and more control...resulting in "campaign implosion". If you removed all the rules for magic item creation from the PHB, and put them in the DMG as "optional rules the DM may allow in his campaign", it would be a LOT better. Alas, WotC chose to cave in to the children screaming "More candy! More candy!".
As one of the children wanting candy, all I can say is - This is why we can't have nice things. :(
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As one of the children wanting candy, all I can say is - This is why we can't have nice things. :(
Sadly true. Except as the parent (DM) isn't it our job to ultimately shape our children's (Players) behaviour, not the teachers (Wotc/Paizo)?
OK off the weird analogy. I fail to understand this adversarial almost one upmanship approach between many DM's and their players.
I discuss with my group the rules and resources available and/or appropriate to each game before playing.
They know if I say this isn't available or this is banned it's ultimately done with the goal of making the game/story more enjoyable for them.
Essentially they want the candy, but understand it might ruin their dinner
As one of the children wanting candy, all I can say is - This is why we can't have nice things. :(Sadly true. Except as the parent (DM) isn't it our job to ultimately shape our children's (Players) behaviour, not the teachers (Wotc/Paizo)?
OK off the weird analogy. I fail to understand this adversarial almost one upmanship approach between many DM's and their players.
I discuss with my group the rules and resources available and/or appropriate to each game before playing.
They know if I say this isn't available or this is banned it's ultimately done with the goal of making the game/story more enjoyable for them.
Essentially they want the candy, but understand it might ruin their dinner
Exactly. However, if I had to guess, I'd say that you and your group learned (RPG's) on a system other than 3e. Maybe 2e? Perhaps Vampire or Palladium? I say that because in my experience, people who "grew up with" 3e, Magic:The Gathering, and computer "RPG's" have a *totally* different opinion on what a GM's role is and what the players "goals" should be. Note I said what the players goals *should be*.
M:tG, 3e and CRPG's (Computer RPG's) have very defined goals; get more powerful stuff so you can beat the other guy. The other guy may be holding a deck of cards, may be the computer's AI and plot-programming, or may be the GM. The end result is that the players are groomed to think that they are supposed to create ever more powerful characters within the scope of the rules. As soon as the GM steps in and says "Uh, no, I'm changing the rules." ...they start to complain about a campaign being "too hard", or "unfair". In short, their view of what the goals of an RPG is isn't the same as they were intended back in the ancient times of AD&D 1st edition, Chivalry & Sorcery, Pendragon, Traveller, etc., where the goal was to create a shared story, not create a more powerful character in order to survive longer so you could gain more power. The power increase was a *byproduct* of earlier RPG'ing attitudes...it seems to be the focus nowadays. All IMHO and IME, of course.
Anyway, this is quite the digression from the original posters intentions, so I'll leave it at that.
4e permits stable play at high levels, simply because it keeps the power curve very shallow -- almost flat. There's no such thing as a 10d6 attack in 4e, for example.
Interestingly, while playing with the Character Builder the other day, I managed to throw together 4E character that can do 6d8+6 damage twice per day, at 3rd level.
Avg dam (10d6) = 35 hp
Avg dam (6d8+6) = 33 hp
Now, that's not as big a deal, since everyone in 4E has more hit points than anyone in 3E, but I was pretty surprised at the sheer output.
O
How did you do it?
How did you do it?
It's a little cheesy, I guess, since it uses the minotaur race, and I made him a fighter. As a racial ability, he can use large weapons, so give him a large (+1) maul for 2d8 damage.
His first level daily is Brute Strike, for 3[W]+Str damage, and you have 6d8+4, +1 for the enhancement bonus, coming to 6d8+5. I didn't really min/max him, so I left it there, but it would be easy enough to get him to a 20 Strength for 6d8+6. Keep in mind, this power is also reliable, so it's going to ruin somebody's day.
I also gave him a suit of Veteran's Armor, which allows him to spend an Action Point to refresh a used daily power. So, boom, 6d8+6 twice a day.
Also, with the 3rd level encounter power, Crushing Blow, this character does 4d8+9 damage in every encounter.
Also, this is all without the use of Power Attack.
O
EDITed for accuracy.
How did you do it?It's a little cheesy, I guess, since it uses the minotaur race, and I made him a fighter. As a racial ability, he can use large weapons, so give him a large (+1) maul for 2d8 damage.
His first level daily is Brute Strike, for 3[W]+Str damage, and you have 6d8+4, +1 for the enhancement bonus, coming to 6d8+5. I didn't really min/max him, so I left it there, but it would be easy enough to get him to a 20 Strength for 6d8+6. Keep in mind, this power is also reliable, so it's going to ruin somebody's day.
I also gave him a suit of Veteran's Armor, which allows him to spend an Action Point to refresh a used daily power. So, boom, 6d8+6 twice a day.
Also, with the 3rd level encounter power, Crushing Blow, this character does 4d8+9 damage in every encounter.
Also, this is all without the use of Power Attack.
O
EDITed for accuracy.
Cool, I thought that oversized weapons would have something to do with it. However, come next month, the minotaur loses the ability to wield oversized weapons.
Once again we see that as soon as you get into fooling around with all that non core s+*$ the game can quickly get unbalanced.
Will I get hopelessly confused?... though I still prefer the system, is certainly too complex -- the fact that the Rules Compendium is so useful demonstrates that.
That book is THE best book in the world. Now and forever.
Once again we see that as soon as you get into fooling around with all that non core s*&~ the game can quickly get unbalanced.
With the exception of the Veteran's Armor, all of that stuff is "core" material. However, it is using the NPC racial block for the minotaur from the MM; using that racial block for a PC race is up to the DM and has been superceded by the minotaur information in Dragon, which removed the oversized weapon features.
FYI, according to Mike Mearls, no PC races will get to use oversized weapons as a racial trait as long as he's employed by WoTC.
How did you do it?It's a little cheesy, I guess, since it uses the minotaur race, and I made him a fighter. As a racial ability, he can use large weapons, so give him a large (+1) maul for 2d8 damage.
His first level daily is Brute Strike, for 3[W]+Str damage, and you have 6d8+4, +1 for the enhancement bonus, coming to 6d8+5. I didn't really min/max him, so I left it there, but it would be easy enough to get him to a 20 Strength for 6d8+6. Keep in mind, this power is also reliable, so it's going to ruin somebody's day.
I also gave him a suit of Veteran's Armor, which allows him to spend an Action Point to refresh a used daily power. So, boom, 6d8+6 twice a day.
Also, with the 3rd level encounter power, Crushing Blow, this character does 4d8+9 damage in every encounter.
Also, this is all without the use of Power Attack.
EDITed for accuracy.
This is an example of the tweaking that can be done but I imagine very few DM's allowing the minotaur as an option for a PC except for a player who won't ruin the game.
I have a minotaur player in my 3.5 ed Dawnforge game who is a barbarian and V Strong so can really put out the damage but the player isn't taking the character to power game, instead he liked the feel of the character. Due to this all I need to do is throw a couple of things into a combat to challenge such a damage dealer and make the parties encounter interesting.As with any game you need to be sure you can hand out the serious guns to a particular player.
In contrast there is another player in our group who can ALWAYS find ways to power game their 3rd ed PC.
Y'see, this is something I don't consider "broken". IMHO, there *should* be things in a game that are 'save or die'. Hell, there should be things in the game that are 'you die'. Of course, it's all in commonality and how they are stumbled upon that make the real difference. I would say this is a personal preference and not a "broken rule" thing.
It becomes a broken rule when the commonality increases past a certain threshold. While I'm sure that this threshold varies for any given gaming group I find it difficult to believe that many groups feel that the level it reaches in 3.5 after 10th is a good thing. If the DM is facing the players with generally humanoid opposition (which presumably includes humanoid spell casters), for example, then your likely to see both sides utilizing save or die effects every round and the higher you go the more extreme this gets.
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I think if you and your group are open-minded and give it a fair try, you will like 4E. More than 3.x? That I can't guarantee. But the new rules are simple and user-friendly.
I have been running a 4E game since June, and I love it. I know there are some subtle things from 3.x that I miss at times, but 4E is so... well, everything I said above. I do not wish to go back to running 3.x, though I'd happily play it.
This is me, exactly. I stopped DMing and playing 3.5 June 5, 2008 and have never gone back. I don't know anyone out of the thirty or so gamers I see during a given month that has gone back to D&D 3.5. Living Greyhawk literally up and died when 4E was released.
I miss a few things about D&D 3.5, too. But, not enough to allow it to take up any of my precious gaming time. DMing and playing 4E has just been too fun.
The above is just my subjective opinion, though. As noted in prior replies, play what you want and what you enjoy. But, I certainly encourage everyone to try D&D 4th Edition. It has great support(D&D Insider and other WotC Web goodies) and it is just a great game.
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FYI, according to Mike Mearls, no PC races will get to use oversized weapons as a racial trait as long as he's employed by WoTC.
Good!
Using a bigger size ups your average damage by 1 (e.g. from d6 t d8 is average damage from 3.5 to 4.5).That does not seem much, but a clever gamer will use an oversized weapon that uses 2 dice (like Maul) and now he has an average of 2 more damage per round.
Of course that gets even better if he uses powers with multiple damage dice eg. 2[W] brings his average per round to 4!
IMHO that ability alone makes the minotaur a better Fighter (in terms of damage output!) than the PHB Classes.
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Y'see, this is something I don't consider "broken". IMHO, there *should* be things in a game that are 'save or die'. Hell, there should be things in the game that are 'you die'. Of course, it's all in commonality and how they are stumbled upon that make the real difference. I would say this is a personal preference and not a "broken rule" thing.
Mostly the splat books break things by allowing players to cherry pick to phenomenally enhance some aspect of their character. That can certainly lead to some broken characters.However the core books are chalk full of stuff thats pretty busted in its own right. Its just overflowing with various kinds of save or die effects or even some really nasty, no save and your nerfed effects.
Well said, pming. Some of the best DM advice I've taken from the literature was from the D&D (not AD&D) line I owned many years ago. Of course, in that game at that time most saving throws were 'make or die' which could, for example, lead munchkins to coat every weapon they had with poison. The advice given to the new DM in the thin, paperback DM guide was simple, 'if characters start to use poison frequently, have monsters use poison more frequently'. Seems almost simplistic, but, in my view, this fundamental philosophy is the pragmatic answer to 99% of 'balance' questions in any RPG. If you're a DM and you find that a character, weapon, or rule is unbalanced in any situation, counterbalance. Make it up as you go. It's one of the reasons why P&P RPGing can always be better than MMO gaming.
There aren't nearly as many broken rules as there are broken DMs, in my view ;)
Y'see, this is something I don't consider "broken". IMHO, there *should* be things in a game that are 'save or die'. Hell, there should be things in the game that are 'you die'. Of course, it's all in commonality and how they are stumbled upon that make the real difference. I would say this is a personal preference and not a "broken rule" thing.
Mostly the splat books break things by allowing players to cherry pick to phenomenally enhance some aspect of their character. That can certainly lead to some broken characters.However the core books are chalk full of stuff thats pretty busted in its own right. Its just overflowing with various kinds of save or die effects or even some really nasty, no save and your nerfed effects.
Well said, pming. Some of the best DM advice I've taken from the literature was from the D&D (not AD&D) line I owned many years ago. Of course, in that game at that time most saving throws were 'make or die' which could, for example, lead munchkins to coat every weapon they had with poison. The advice given to the new DM in the thin, paperback DM guide was simple, 'if characters start to use poison frequently, have monsters use poison more frequently'. Seems almost simplistic, but, in my view, this fundamental philosophy is the pragmatic answer to 99% of 'balance' questions in any RPG. If you're a DM and you find that a character, weapon, or rule is unbalanced in any situation, counterbalance. Make it up as you go. It's one of the reasons why P&P RPGing can always be better than MMO gaming.
There aren't nearly as many broken rules as there are broken DMs, in my view ;)
70% of the time players are reasonable and if some glitch in the rule is being exploited then the player can be asked not to employ such a glitch but if the player won't play fair on a slight technical failure then the big guns come out and as DM you can veto anything that ruins the game.
Most of the players will understand your reasoning and back you up.
...I am going to give 4e a try.
Come January, I'll be playing in a 4e game. It'll be my first time playing (as opposed to GMing) in a long long time. For all intents and purposes, I guess I'm a n00b. 4e should be right up my alley, right?
I don't know anyone out of the thirty or so gamers I see during a given month that has gone back to D&D 3.5.
I play 4E just about every weekday in a lunch-hour campaign. It's an okay game, but I definitely prefer 3.5. I recently started DMing a new 3.5 campaign on Saturday nights, and I play in a weekly Wednesday night game that went from 3.5 to Warhammer for a couple of months. We all got tired of Warhammer and discussed playing 4E. The majority (who also play 4E on their lunch hours) chose to return to 3.5 rather than start a 4E campaign.
Anecdotal, of course, but still interesting, I think.
Living Greyhawk literally up and died when 4E was released.
Well, it was killed. I wouldn't say it just "up and died." :)
I've been running a 4E game for a couple of months now more or less weekly. There are plenty of things I like about it and a few things I don't.
1. Overall I find it easier to monitor the power levels of the PCs. I find that overall the classes are better balanced in terms of how they interact with each other and the monsters. This makes keeping tabs on my munchkin player much easier.
2. It is much easier to make the monsters tougher or easier for encounters. The elite and solo rules are really useful for beefing up boss villains so that they don't go down like chumps, and the advancement rules make it easy to scale monsters up and down a few levels without having to crunch many numbers or make many adjustments. I personally haven't made much use of the minion rules, but I plan to try them out soon.
3. I find the monsters easy to run and manage, and that the combat rules are more clear and easy to use, but still have plenty of tactical options (even more so than 3E in many ways). However, I use battlemats and minis, and I think running this game without them would be very tough because of all the tactical movement. Sometimes I find that boss monsters (particularly spell casters) don't have quite a large enough variety of options (not enough spells to use), which tends to result in me having to add a couple of extras to their stat block, but overall it's not a big deal.
4. Converting adventures from 3E to 4E is fairly easy.
5. Overall the players seem to like their characters and the abilities of the different classes. They are fine with healing surges and like that there are a lot of options for healing that don't involve a cleric. They also like that many classes have abilities that allows for some healing and an attack at the same time (or makes healing a minor action, so that you can do both)
6. I like that actions are very clear: standard, move, minor and free.
7. I'm not a big fan of the new skill system. It's a little too simplistic and there are too many skills missing that I'd like to see in the game.
8. Overall we've had just as much rping in our 4E game as we did in our 3E game.
9. I look forward to seeing more options for spellcasters in particular more rituals and more enchantment, illusion and possibly conjuration magic. However, I do not miss all the buffing of 3E- not one bit.
10. I like that there are more options for martial characters.
Note: So far I've only played the system at lower levels. My experience with 3E is that I like the game play best at 4-12th level. So far with 4E I've found all the levels equally enjoyable, but we haven't gotten past 5th yet.
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Well I finally have lost my mind. I found a set of the three core books on sale and I am going to give 4e a try. I don't know who I will play with as my gaming group are all 3.5 die hards.I'm glad you bought the books. I'm sure you'll enjoy the game, especially when you see how easy it is to learn and play. Read through the Player's Handbook to learn the rules. Then, offer to run friends through the "Kobold Hall" adventure at the back of the Dungeon Master's Guide.
Bug us with questions, and let us know how things go.
In my opinion that particular "adventure" (if you can call it such) is pure **** and features the *worst* maps I've probably ever seen (CRPGs included). I know that if someone tried to run it for me, I'd walk out. Seriously. It's even worse than the adventures in FRCG (which are almost as bad, and the Loudwater map is IMO the worst city map ever published in a RPG product). Any 1st level Dungeon adventure would be better, although they may be not as easy to run.
The town featured in DMG is very nice, though, and I printed the map from the WoTC site for my Pathfinder Beta playtest campaign.
I concur, Kobold Hall looks really lame.
Well I finally have lost my mind. I found a set of the three core books on sale and I am going to give 4e a try. I don't know who I will play with as my gaming group are all 3.5 die hards.I'm glad you bought the books. I'm sure you'll enjoy the game, especially when you see how easy it is to learn and play. Read through the Player's Handbook to learn the rules. Then, offer to run friends through the "Kobold Hall" adventure at the back of the Dungeon Master's Guide.
Bug us with questions, and let us know how things go.
In my opinion that particular "adventure" (if you can call it such) is pure **** and features the *worst* maps I've probably ever seen (CRPGs included). I know that if someone tried to run it for me, I'd walk out. Seriously. It's even worse than the adventures in FRCG (which are almost as bad, and the Loudwater map is IMO the worst city map ever published in a RPG product). Any 1st level Dungeon adventure would be better, although they may be not as easy to run.
The town featured in DMG is very nice, though, and I printed the map from the WoTC site for my Pathfinder Beta playtest campaign.
There are some really excellent ideas on this thread. I identify with the comment that there are more broken DM's than broken rules (in any system). Nothing is perfect but having DMed all previous incarnations of DnD (not 4th yet) my view is that when anything gets too complicated you must simplifiy it.
The poster who commented on the access to magic shops makes a great point. I have never allowed magic shops/bizarres etc in my game. It's always been a great side trek to find someone who would buy excess gear. I also keep fairly tight in regards to what magic to let out. This may be called stingy by some, but believe me, game balance outweighs all other considerations and the only thing players hate more than a challenge that is way too hard, is when they defeat everything way too easily (an exception might be the types that only want easy battles).
Put simply, I've found 4th ed to be fun because of it's ease but I miss the scope of 3.5 when I play it. As always, finding the balance is the art.
I currently play in a 3.5 game with average level 14. It's awesome. We got stumped by a mindflayer using stinking cloud! It didn't kill us but it stopped about 90 levels of enemy getting to it. Again, just really awesome DMing and use of the rules to think outside the square....must get "greater dispell' happening.....
Kobold Hall isn't a real adventure. It's a "Learn to play" that teaches you the ins and outs of 4e combat. It shouldn't be compared to any sort of adventure product.
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Two magic items that I have a real problem with, for example, are in the DMG. Candle of invocation[/i[ allows a party to summon a Solar and its only about 8,000 gp. Easily within the price range of a party of around 6th level that splits the cost. Now if they ever get concerned that they might be in real danger they bring in their Solar and they win.
The candles are consumed with each summoning making them single use for the solar summoning purpose, and they also have to be clerics to perform that task. At a cost of 8000 each candle, an average of 4 encounters per adventure, 4 candles means they are spending 32,000 gold to gain an average of 8000 gold total per adventure. That's not a realistic scenario. Most adventurers would balk at the cost unless the need is that great. And the cost of the item is 4 times the cost of hiring a sorceror to cast the same spell.
[i]Dust of Sneezing and Chocking is even worse. Its an automatic kill on anything that happens to breath. Want to slay the colossal dragon? Well this will make that a piece of cake.
I assume that the dust was only given a cursory glance otherwise you'd note several issues. One, it's dust, which requires the caster to be central to the throwing, or at least proximal, which means it has as much chance to do it to you as your opponent. It's a one shot item, so even if you bought 20 boxes of it, it becomes very expensive. . It takes about 3d6 Constitution if a Fortitude DC of 15 is failed twice. That is a nothing DC for most powerful creatures. A dragon, even a wyrmling has a minimum of a + 7 Fort save, a Juvenile has a save of +14. And the constitution loss would be a lot less painful than you losing that much constitution if you were caught in the area of effect. Oh and did I mention that your character think it's a beneficial dust to help you see opponents, making it very likely that you would use it on yourself if you never were able to identify it. And like all cursed items they are GM's decision to place in the game.
The splat books (as published) are much worse in providing items as well as feats that are obviously not balanced. That is not an opinion. They corrected many occurrences of this. But whole sections still made certain spells and items so much more overpowering than their costs versus the intentions of the core books. Spells that did status effects and damage at much greater amounts were found as lower spell levels. The last books in the series were probably the worst about this like the MIC.
Two magic items that I have a real problem with, for example, are in the DMG. Candle of invocation allows a party to summon a Solar and its only about 8,000 gp. Easily within the price range of a party of around 6th level that splits the cost. Now if they ever get concerned that they might be in real danger they bring in their Solar and they win.The candles are consumed with each summoning making them single use for the solar summoning purpose, and they also have to be clerics to perform that task. At a cost of 8000 each candle, an average of 4 encounters per adventure, 4 candles means they are spending 32,000 gold to gain an average of 8000 gold total per adventure. That's not a realistic scenario. Most adventurers would balk at the cost unless the need is that great. And the cost of the item is 4 times the cost of hiring a sorceror to cast the same spell.
You don't use them on every encounter - many encounters are not that tough. You use them on an encounter where there is some danger a PC might die. Use on every BBEG for example, maybe once or twice an adventure. That keeps the price reasonable. Essentially any time low to mid level players have a solar (or a couple) in their back pocket ready to be unleashed on anything the DM tries to scare them with thats unbalancing.
Dust of Sneezing and Chocking is even worse. Its an automatic kill on anything that happens to breath. Want to slay the colossal dragon? Well this will make that a piece of cake.
I assume that the dust was only given a cursory glance otherwise you'd note several issues. One, it's dust, which requires the caster to be central to the throwing, or at least proximal, which means it has as much chance to do it to you as your opponent.
Sure the user goes out as well - make sure that the rest of the party is not in the spread when your planing on using the item. Generally take a move action to move up to the target creature on your turn and then use a standard action to release the dust. Using a big dragon as an example and you have the user and the dragon both hit but the rest of the party is not in the area of effect.
It's a one shot item, so even if you bought 20 boxes of it, it becomes very expensive.
Again save it for anything big the DM throws at you or for those creatures that the DM is under the delusion are too hard for the PCs to kill.
It takes about 3d6 Constitution if a Fortitude DC of 15 is failed twice. That is a nothing DC for most powerful creatures. A dragon, even a wyrmling has a minimum of a + 7 Fort save, a Juvenile has a save of +14. And the constitution loss would be a lot less painful than you losing that much constitution if you were caught in the area of effect.
We don't really care if the dragon makes or fails these saving throws - this is not the part of the item thats of interest. Here's the kicker in the items description "Those who succeed on either saving throw are nonetheless disabled by choking (treat as stunned) for 5d4 rounds.
Check out the stunned condition - you cannot take any action while stunned, you just sit there. In this case our dragon just sits there and takes no actions to defend itself for an average of 13 rounds. So the rest of the party now stands in front of the dragon and unloads with everything they have for the next 13 rounds while the Dragon sucks it up. Almost any creature will die if the players spend 13 rounds wailing on it while it does absolutely nothing but choke and wheeze.|
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Pming has made the most sense so far.
Sure 1,2,3 or 4ed but a game is a game so long as it is fun no problem. 3.x is an awesome system and if you stick to the three books (PHB, DMG and MM) it is solid. Add all the extras and you find holes... players to into mechanic monsters (2nd D&D DMG had an excellent article about these players) and try and min/max or just max characters. It is exactly what happened to Rolemaster (the first) when options got more adn more powerful.
4ed is just beginning but it will head that way as well. You have to understand that all these extras are to make money for WotC.. they bribe you and cloud your mind with powerful suggestion spells.
Me and my group decided to draw a line in the sand and stay with 3.5. We have a smattering of D&D books from the read box and AD&D1. With the crazy sales on 3.5 stuff and the abundent materials for campaigns and adventures (goodman and paizo to name a few), as a DM I will never have to create my world from scratch again. I don't have the time to invest in that any more and I seriously have a decade of adventures at playing 8 hours a month in that time.
New books don't mean better. No problem in giving it a try... I played it at Gencon in Australia and thought what was the difference between me playing it and a computer game. WotC have even create a month subscription for content just like WoW has a monthly subscription cost. 4e is not table top though the roots of it come from there.
I hope 4th Ed works out for you and I most certainly hope that you and your goup continue to enjoy your tabletopping!
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We don't really care if the dragon makes or fails these saving throws - this is not the part of the item thats of interest. Here's the kicker in the items description "Those who succeed on either saving throw are nonetheless disabled by choking (treat as stunned) for 5d4 rounds.
Check out the stunned condition - you cannot take any action while stunned, you just sit there. In this case our dragon just sits there and takes no actions to defend itself for an average of 13 rounds. So the rest of the party now stands in front of the dragon and unloads with everything they have for the next 13 rounds while the Dragon sucks it up. Almost any creature will die if the players spend 13 rounds wailing on it while it does absolutely nothing but choke and wheeze.
So? Using the RAW this item would be insanely powerful. But if you use rule 1. you are fine.
Item too powerful etc?
Easy fix:
Don't allow it. That's the job of the DM. Give a good reason to the players and stay your ground. After all, it's in the interest of the game. DnD isn't the 10 commandments, if a rule/item is ruining the game, take it out or change it. Problem fixed.
